

If you look closely, you can see this Jacob Miller was given the ID #835.

The “primary person” is the person who was assigned an ID number first. The parents’ last name is spelled slightly different.

Notice in the next image, each Jacob Miller has the same birth year and death year. The system will tell you how many duplicates it finds and then allow you to compare them one-by-one.
#Rootsmagic 2019 software
When you have chosen how you want the software to check for duplicates, click “Search for duplicates” at the bottom of the box. You can search by surname, given name, or search for names that “sound alike.” Cleaning up duplicate entries is especially important if you have merged two databases in which you and the other contributor may have used different name spellings. There are several options for taking care of duplicates. If you are keeping your family tree on RootsMagic or other similar software, you can run a duplicate search by clicking on “Tools,” choosing “Merge,” and then clicking “Duplicate search merge.” Each software program will work a little differently, of course. For those using Family Tree Maker, choose “Edit,” then “Find Duplicate People.” Cleaning Up Duplicates in a Genealogy Software Program Duplicate entries can be distracting and even cause you to make mistakes. You know how good it feels to sit down in a nice, clean room? The same is true when you sit down to do your genealogy. Why Should You Clean Up Duplicates in Your Family Tree?Ĭleaning up duplicates in your family tree will help you in the future. Here is a quick and easy way to clean up duplicate entries in your family tree on RootsMagic, Family Tree Maker, or other genealogy software programs. I’m sure that these notes will come in handy when I start actively using RootsMagic 8 and find more duplicate sources.Cleaning up duplicates in your family tree is a way to keep your tree looking great! Sometimes, we get so busy, we forget to “prune” or keep our tree tidy. On this screen I can see that there is a total of 37 citations for this source which is the combination of the 27 citations from the source that was kept and the 10 citations from the source that was not kept. If I click the green < to the left of the word Citations, the screen switches to the sources screen showing the surviving source. I clicked on the ‘Merge Duplicates’ button and my screen switched to the citations screen for the surviving source.

When I click on ‘Merge Sources’ a window opens prompting me to ‘Select Source’.Īgain, I use the search box to look for ‘journal and’ to narrow the list. If I click on the three dots in the upper right of the Sources section of the screen, it reveals the option to “Merge Sources” īefore starting the merge, I need to make sure the source I want to keep is highlighted. I made this discovery when I searched my list of sources for ‘journal and’. While working thru what my process will be to add a source to an event in the preview of RootsMagic 8, I discovered that I have the same source in my database twice.
