Question

Would like to merge of Peter Hutchinson-981 and Peter Hutchinson-1628 - they are the same person - can't do it. Why?

Comments

It looks like both profiles had parents linked to it, with a birthplace in France. You have removed that information from both profiles without any Research Notes being added to the profiles to identify the parents that were removed.  Do you have a source to prove that either set of parents did not have a child born in France or that came to USA?  I don't see any sources on his parents or birth in either profile.  The Find A Grave that is on the Hutchinson-981 profile states he was born in France with the date that you removed. The parents mentioned matched one set of parents that has been removed.

If your purpose was to remove parents so the profiles can be merged and you can not find sources for his birth or parents, that is not the correct way to do it.  Links to both sets of parents can be left in the profiles with a note that sources are needed, they are uncertain parents.  Also, including similar information in the parents profiles, otherwise, we can have duplicate profiles generated or people that were linked to parents will not know how or why they lost a connection.

Without looking in the Changes Log, the information and links are lost, which is not the correct method on wikitree.

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Thank you for your response, Linda. I would like to separate the merging issue into two questions 1) Why won't the Wikitree software allow me to initiate a merge? (a technical question) 2) What should we do about the two sets of parents? Your response only addresses the second question. My question is really the first one.

Question 1) I did everything I could think of to try to initate a merge, including removing both sets of parents, but the Wikitree website won't allow me to do anything other than note them as an "unmerged match". They have had that status for about 5 years now and I would like to fix that by proposing a merge.

Question 2) I have spent over 30 years on this family (including two trips to PRONI in Belfast and the National Archives of Ireland in Dublin) and can assure you that both sets of parents are complete garbage. In fact there is no primary source record to show either ever existed, let alone had a son Peter who was born in France on their way to the colonies. Find A Grave is not a source that can be relied on nor is Ancestry. I would like Wikitree to be more than an echo chamber for internet rumor. Another frequently made false claim about Peter is that he is the brother of Andrew Jackson's mother, Elizabteth Hutchinson (that one can be disproven). When parents are made up whole cloth it is a little harder to disprove other than note that there is no primary source evidence whatsoever to show that they ever existed.

In any case, I'm happy to include either set of parents - they are both equally wrong. We can note that in Peter Hutchinson's profile. I only detached them to try to get Wikitree's software to allow me to initiate a merge of the two Peter's (I am the manager of Hutchinson-981). That is my quest.

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As Gaile said earlier, wikitree wouldn't allow you to propose a new merge because there is already one proposed.  It is in the 'unmerged match' area, as you stated, so you have to 'remove' that match, then you can 'initiate a new merge'.  Unfortunately, the system does not allow you to automatically move from the 'Unmerged' status directly to a new 'Proposed' merge status, so you have to do the 'Remove' first.

I have created an Uncertain Parents section in Hutchinson-981 profile that has both sets of parents included. I also added the Uncertain Family template to the profile since both parents were questionable. 

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Thank you very much, Linda. I appreciate the help. I removed the "unmerged match" and then was able to propose the merge. As you mentioned, I will probably have to wait for 30 days to make it happen because the profile manager of Hutchinson-1628 appears to be inactive.

It would be nice if WIkitree would fix that bug in their code.

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I located the probable ur-source for the parents of Peter Huchinson that is now all over the internet. It is an IGI record from the old days of familysearch. It has been copied onto Wikitree at this [https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:IGI_Family_Group_Record_141 link]. This IGI record gives James P Hutchinson and Hannah Howerton as his parents also has Elizabeth Hutchinson, mother of Andrew Jackson, as Peter's sister. That is easily disproved because when Andrew Jackson became president in 1829, there were extensive interviews of people that knew his mother and her five sisters and their families personally -- no mention of a brother Peter is ever made by the people who would have known him personally if he existed.

Wikitree has a page devoted to the Hutchinson ancestry of Andrew Jackson [https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Hutchinson_Grandparents_of_US_President_Andrew_Jackson here]. James P. Hutchinson and Hannah Howerton are not even considered as one the the three sets of candidate parents for Elizabeth Hutchinson.

The reason familysearch ended the IGI is that it contained way too much garbage. The record we are considering here is a good example.

Answer 1

Right now they are set as an unmerged match.  You should be able to change that to proposed merge, but you will not be able to complete the merge right away because you are only manager of one of the profiles.  The other manager will have 30 days to either approve or reject the merge and if he/she takes no action in that time, then the merge will receive default approval (by the WikiTree system), after which you will be able to proceed to complete it.

Comments

I am grateful for the answer, but I would like to add the key point that it misses. You cannot propose a merge if the persons to be merged already exist as an "unmerged match". You have to first delete the unmerged match, then the Wikitree software will allow you to proceed with the proposed merge. Crazy!!