People merging profiles blow up your references.

Question

I am very active with a certain family, but every time I submit a merge on a duplicate, the newer profile manager completes the merge, but just imports THEIR profile, blowing up any and all references that I've posted on the original profile.

How do I recover that info?

rsl

Comments

You should be able to access the lost data from the profile's Changes log, presuming a private/unlisted profile was not involved in the merge.

Look for the change that ends with text similar to this (Merged WikiTreeID## into WikiTreeID#)

• WikiTreeID## is the merged-away profile.
• WikiTreeID# is the remaining profile.

If you need more help, post one of the profile IDs.

edit: added text: /unlisted

Answer 1

I know you already know how to merge, but does anything from this Help entry help you? Would it help to signal to the other PM that you'd appreciate it if they handled the sources carefully, or left it to you?

Merging text

All profiles should have one == Biography == headline and one == Sources == headline with one <references /> tag directly beneath it.

When you merge profiles, the text sections must be combined. Our merging software attempts to make this easier for you. The text from the biography section from the merged-away profile is appended to the bottom of the text from the biography section of the merged-into profile, and likewise with the sources sections.

This automatic merging is rough. Always review and edit it.

You can experiment by clicking the button to restore the original text from the merged-into profile or merged-away profile. If you do, a button will appear to re-merge the text. Don't click any of these buttons if you have made edits to the text section that you want to keep — they will replace it. Another way to view the original text of the profiles is to open them in new browser windows.

You can preview the text section before confirming the merge. Please make sure that it's worthy of your ancestor. Thank you!

Answer 2

but once the merge is completed, any changes not saved disappear, at least I can't find a "restore" button anywhere on the new profile.

This has happened to me twice this week, and the reaction of the other manager seems to be "oh well."

rsl

Comments

Here's another thing you can do, if you end up working with that same person again:  First, save the profile that you want as a PDF (I use "export as PDF," not "Save"), then you can copy things from it onto the merged profile.  Or you could view the profile you want to preserve in edit mode, paste the Biography contents into a Word document, then paste them into the Biography section of the merged profile.

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You won't always be able to restore the data via the restore function, Roy. However, if you can access the data, you can copy/paste it back into the profile.

Answer 3

Hi again Roy!  If i understand the Help article properly, the data should always be somewhere.  Was Columbia Stetson one of the profiles that this happened to?  Here is the change log for her.  Notice that there are arrows to the Previous Change and Next Change as well.  Is the lost data on there somewhere?

Please let me know.

Cheers

Shirlea

Answer 4

From the changes log when the merge occurred, you can select the merged away ID which will put you on the changes log for that ID.  If you select the 'Edited the data' phrase for the last entry, you will see what the biography looked like at that time. You can then copy and paste anything into the new biography that was not retained. I would recommend having 2 browser windows open next to each other to make it easier.  You will have to do some editing once it is pasted because it will have the dash lines and be broken up more for each line.

If it continues to happen with the same person where they are discarding your biography and sources, unless they are duplicates, and you have asked them to be careful about it, I would look at the problems with members process.  Merging correctly is important and it should be done correctly, collaborating and using information from both records.