How do I eliminate a duplicate person?

Question

I have connected my gedcom to Ellen Carmody-41. I just ran across the suggestion that I connect my gedcom to Ellen Carmody-996. (I'm adding the first name just for clarity.) Clearly both Carmody entries are of the same person. Carmody-996 has no owner of the profile. What is supposed to happen? Does Carmody-996 some how get deleted? Do they somehow get merged?

This is the first time I've run across this so it's time to learn something new.

Thanks in advance for help.

Comments

Those two profiles were merged back on 20 Oct 2023, but your GEDCOM may be older than that. There is a button to refresh the suggested matches at the bottom of every GEDCOMpare report.

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The weird thing is that I just refreshed my GEDCOMpare report before I ran into the duplicate suggestion. When I went back to follow the instructions here, I discovered that the duplication had already been fixed. October was many many entries ago so it was no longer in my memory, that's for sure. Thanks Paddy.

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The refresh button must just look for new suggestions, while remembering all the old suggestions and whether you accepted or rejected them, even keeping two separate suggestions after the original profiles have been merged.

Answer 1

The profiles should be merged. You will go to Carmody-996 and scroll down to the bottom of the page and initiate the merge, entering Carmody-41. The newer profile is always merged into the older one so that only the older remains. You will have the opportunity to merge the text in the biography section to create the best profile. Normally, when you initiate a merge, both profile managers will need to approve it, but in this case there is no profile manager, so you will be able to just do it without a waiting period.

You should take a long time comparing the profiles side by side (there is a link to do this) to make sure they are really the same person. Make sure you have good sources, then proceed. Merging duplicate profiles is a very important process to benefit the health of the WikiTree! Just take your time and you will be fine.

Answer 2

The profiles need to be merged. Help for this is here.

Comments

If you scroll to the bottom of Carmody-41 you will see a section "Matches and Merges". Under Pending merges there is a link "Initiate a merge". This will start the process.