Find and merge duplicate people in a family tree
Drop the .ged, open “Fix” and press “Find people entered twice”. Look through the pairs side by side, merge the real duplicates and save the tree.
How pairs are found
Two people are paired when their names match once accents and letter case are set aside, their sex does not contradict, their birth and death years are no more than two years apart, and one more thing agrees: the same parents, the same spouse, the same birthplace, or both a birth and a death year. Brothers or sisters with the same name — often a child named after one who died — are not paired unless their birth dates match to the day.
What merging keeps
Everything from both: names, events, notes, sources and photos, without repeats. Links to the removed duplicate are moved to the one you keep, and families with the same two partners become one family.
Questions
- I merged the wrong pair.
- Press “Undo” — it takes back the last change, and up to 30 changes before it.
- My duplicates came from joining two files.
- That is the usual case: see merge two GEDCOM files.