Faulty Merge-what did I do wrong?

Question

I merged Nevers-377 into Nevers-368 and the links under sources disappeared. http://wikitree.com/wiki/Nevers-368 still has the sources I added but not the linked sources the man who suggested the merge added.  I need to understand what mistake I made so that I never do it again.  I've actually hurt someone by my actions.  We work hard gathering sources. I feel dreadful for this mistake.

Answer 1

It looks like you didn't merge the biographies, but all is not lost.  If you look at the changes tab you will be able to locate the earlier sources that were added and copy and paste them back into the biography.

Comments

Thank you, Kathie, but no, Nevers-377 doesn't exist.  All the earlier ones under the change tab return to Nevers-368. I wish I could go back and fix it.

Answer 2

All is well. The links are in the changes tab for 368.  I pasted them as a comment on the profile as it says Kathie is editing it and may be adding them so I could not open the profile to place them in the Sources section.

Comments

Thank you so much, Patricia.  You have really set my mind at ease. Not only for the links but the idea that if we make a mistake in a merge, as I did, it can be corrected.  So why I didn't find the links is I didn't first hit edit, before the change tab, is that right?  Because I couldn't locate the links.

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Dale had placed the links on the 368 profile not your 377, so those additions show on the Changes tab for 368.

If they had been on the merged away 377, to see those you would do that from the existing profile's changes log by clicking the link to the merged profile. 

11:29: Pat Miller merged Eliza Miles (Nevers) Brown (1835-1914) into Eliza M. (Nevers) Brown (1835-1914). (Nevers-377 into Nevers-368: Clear duplicate.) [Thank Pat for this]

After clicking on the Nevers-377 link the change log for 377 will open and you then need to click on any previous edit to open the screen that shows the details.  A previous edit like   

06:46: Pat Miller edited the Biography for Eliza Miles (Nevers) Brown (1835-1914). (Minor corrections. ) [Thank Pat for this]

Click on the "edited the Biography" and the detailed history for 377 is visible, which in this case is what was saved to 368

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Things absolutely can be lost forever in a merge... if someone first wipes out or removes/alters portions of the bio of one of the profiles, and then later that profile is merged into another one, then the original bio, before the more recent edits that occurred prior to merge, is gone for good... this has happened to me.

This could be fixed, if when merging profiles, the full history of both profiles was merged... though I understand that is not the easiest of things to accomplish.

Perhaps if one single history entry were added to the merged profile with a concatenation of the full history of the profile that is being disappeared, that would be sufficient to ensure no history is ever lost....