From WeRelate
Frequently asked questions
When should pages be merged?
- Anytime that two pages unnecessarily separate information that should be unified, a merger is necessary. For person and family pages, a merger is required when two pages are created for the same individual or family. Mergers are also appropriate for alternate spellings of surnames or places, or for pages regarding the same source.
How do I merge pages?
- In the future, we will offer a simple "merging" function that will simplify the process of merging pages. For the time being, you will need to transfer all information to one of the pages and have the other page(s) "redirect" to this surviving page. Follow the steps below:
EVERYTHING ON THE REDIRECTED PAGES WILL BE LOST! IT IS IMPORTANT TO FIRST COPY THE NAMES, EVENTS, DOCUMENTATION, IMAGES AND PERSONAL HISTORY THAT ARE UNIQUE TO THE PAGES BEING REDIRECTED ONTO THE SURVIVING PAGE BEFORE REDIRECTING. If you forget to copy the information, please follow the directions for What if I don't agree with a merge.
- Decide which page will remain in use on WeRelate.
- When merging person or family pages and the names in the page titles are different, keep the page whose title that has the more standard spelling of the name.
- When the page titles are equally good, keep the page containing the most information.
- If all other things are equal, keep the page with the lower number.
- Cut and paste all information from the duplicate page(s) to the page to be kept. Include any different names or event dates and places as alternate information in the appropriate edit boxes. If there is reason not to copy data (e.g. the date is obviously wrong because it would put a death before birth, or information has been disproven elsewhere), it's appropriate to note the omission in the Edit Summary or the notes of the page being kept.
- Edit each duplicate page. Erase everything in the "Personal History" or "Family History" text box at the bottom of the page and replace it with the line #redirect [[Person:title of family page to keep]] (for person pages), or #redirect [[Family:title of family page to keep]] (for family pages). Make sure this line appears in the first line of the text box, without a preceding line or spaces. This causes the duplicate page to redirect to the page being kept.
- For example, if merging "Person:John Doe (2)" into "Person:John Doe (1)", first edit "Person:John Doe (1)" and add the names, events, and personal history information from "Person:John Doe (2)" that should be kept. Then edit "Person:John Doe (2)" and replace the text in the Personal History edit box with the single line
- #redirect [[Person:John Doe (1)]]
Important note about merging
Merging moves all person, family, and image links to the merged page (the page being kept). So if a Family page is merged, the family members become members of the merged family. Similarly, when a Person page is merged, the families to which the person belongs become associated with the merged person. Therefore, once you've merged a person or family, you should look at the merged page and merge any duplicates that appear.
What happens after a merge?
- Everyone watching the duplicate page will be added to the list of people watching the kept page.
- Everyone watching either page will get an email notifying them that the page has been changed.
- All the links to the merged page on other Person/Family pages will be merged page (see above).
- Any other links, such as those manually entered in notes, will continue to work and will be redirected to the page being kept.
- The redirected page will no longer appear in search results or on category pages.
What if I don't agree with a merge?
- If people were merged incorrectly--that is, two different people were merged into one person--you can undo the merge. (For simplicity in these instructions, the "old" page is the page needing restoration, and the "new" page is the newly merged person page.)
- Go to the "old" page that you wish to restore. Use the original name of the page (it will redirect to the "new" page), and click on the "redirected from" link below the page title.
- Click on the History link at the top of the page under the blue banner. Find the version to which the page should be reverted. Open that version of the page by clicking on the link showing when it was edited, click on "Edit" at the top and then on "Save page" at the bottom of the page.
- Go to the "new" page. Click "Edit" and remove the information that belongs to the person documented on the "old" page. Explain in the Summary what you are doing. Click "Save page".
- If two pages that are actually the same person were merged, then they should stay merged. Any corrections should be made on the newly merged version of the page. If there are disagreements over information that should or should not be included, use the Talk page to discuss what should be properly included.
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