Merge advice

Question

Best course of action please.

Benjamin Pearsall (Piersol-Pearsall-4) and Benjamin Peirsol (Peirsol-5) have been marked as Unmerged Matches.is where I am struggling I think it needs merging but I have "parked" it at the moment.

I have merged a number of profiles which have various permutations of names. Vaguely around the spellings in the proposed merge above. This has narrowed thing down a bit but arrives at a presently unsourced need to merge. But both the profiles are probably wrong last name. Peirsol seems to be a typo of Piersol. Piersol-Pearsall is a combination of the most likely spellings.The choice for the parents has been Pearsall not sourced that I can see as yet but at marriage Piersol was used. All of course stemming from various unsourced family trees. What is the best way to merge? i.e separately into a new Pearsall or Piersol if sources can be found (but this may never happen) or merge these together I guess getting rid of the hyphenated version then change the name if (ever) the correct one is found. (or leave as an unmerged match for years and hope it all goes away, which is the usual solution. "sarcasm") A merge will be really helpful to limit further additions to the wrong generation as there are a number of Benjamin Pierwhatevers around ;-(

 

 

Answer 1

My advice would be:

- First, don't do hyphenated last names when those hyphenated names are nothing more than spelling variations. Pick one variation, and document the others in the Biography. Because the hyphenated name is not a true last name, it is only an artificial name that should be removed.

- You can also use the Other Last Names field to list possibly used spelling variations. You can have multiple names in this field, separate each name by a comma.

- How to pick a spelling variation? Ideally if you have documentation on the subject.

- What if there are multiple spellings in the documentation? See which one is used more in all of the documentation, OR see how the person's descendants are spelling it.

- What if there is little (to no) documentation on a subject? Use the most common spelling variation found in the person's descendants.

- It's better to pick some spelling variation than to leave the profile in some weird limbo, waiting to decide. If more, or better, information comes to light in the future, then the profile can be changed.

Those are my rules of thumb. However, others may have better advice.

Regarding this specific situation, it looks like the descendants of profile Piersol-Pearsall-4 (found here) use the spelling "Peirsol". This can be seen by picking a random descendant, such as Harry Allen Peirsol, who has a Find A Grave page, which shows a photo of his gravestone that clearly has that spelling variation.

So if I were you, I would pick "Peirsol", and be done with it. Note the possible spelling variations in the Profile's Biography section, even making subsection about it if you desire.

Again, my two cents.

Comments

Thanks Eric almost word for word my understanding of the way to go. I guess either way if the LNAB needs changing it will be another redirect.

Merges are contentious whatever happens. I was trying to confirm my understanding of the best way forward. I have had one rmerge rejected this week with a comment "these are the same person but the merge is the wrong way round "! I tried to explain that it will resolve itself if you follow the merge procedure but to no avail. I really will not go back and start again ;-( Its's not surprising that there are so many unmerged and rejected merges that should have been completed years ago.

Duplicates are so detrimental to the Wikitree process as it escalates the duplicate problem  Each branch heads off on it's own way until someone then spends hours putting it all back together. If a duplicate is caught early all the better.

 

Thanks.

---

You can always see if there is a Mentor here who can help you, or help others if necessary, in figuring out how to do merge and why it needs to be done a certain way.