GEDCOM duplications

Question

The Data Error report has hardly been published and the first errors that I check are duplicates from a GEDCOM import.

What amazes me is that the import was done by the SAME person duplicating their OWN profiles - the first import in April 2013 and the second on 17 Nov 2016.

I do not understand how this happens. It seem as if this person just ignored matches and marked them as rejected and there magically appears ANOTHER SET OF DUPLICATES.

Is there nothing more that can be done to prevent these duplicate imports?

Comments

May be Wiki tree should stop allowing GEDCOM's, never found one on a profile that gives any info, looking up references and writting them out might take longer but you can find so many more details and is far more help to others, some people out there do not have the money to join a lot if the info sites like ancestry, so a GEDCOM ref is useless to them

More sources need to be properly written down in plain english, that will help far more people with research

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I feel like not allowing GedCom's is the best idea yet. Having to clean someone elses GedCom can be a pain also because you don't really know what to get rid of or what to keep!

Answer 1

Hi Esmé, I understood that the WikiTeam and Ales are working on a solution for that. It is however puzzling that an identical GEDCOM 3 years apart by the same person is possible at all ...

Answer 2

I've seen as many as 4 duplicates that were created by the very same Gedcom import (but not by recent Gedcom imports).

The duplication you describe might result from a person failing to understand that we don't/can't update/supplement profiles by importing Gedcoms that contain additional or corrected information. (Updates and corrections need to be made manually.)

Or maybe they made incorrect choices on the Gedcom form because they didn't realize what the different options meant.

Comments

I think you are right, it looks as if it was supplemental information. Some of the biography info was also copied and pasted to the old profiles.

Answer 3

You might try blocking messages to the uploader from people saying they can not do anything on their tree until the they go through all the matches, it's hard to take the time to do anything right when others are bombarding them with hurry ups.

Answer 4

It is possible to stop GEDCOM duplicates, but there would have to be a change in GEDCOM transfer protocal where matches are suspected and unless proven/sworn not to be duplicates, complete with statement as to why they are not matches, they sre rejected before put into the Wikitree.