Matches



A guide to working with profile matches on Geni

The best approach is Search, Match, Link before building duplicate trees...

... not build, duplicate, merge, resulting in ...Tree conflicts and Data conflicts

Because this is a tutorial project please do not link profiles to it. Translations are welcome.

If you have any specific questions, comments or suggestions about the guidelines below, please contact June Barnes or Erica Howton who are Volunteer Curators. Do not hesitate to ask questions about anything that is not clear, or draw attention to things that I may have been missed!

Alternatively raise a discussion to embrace wider participation and input.

Please note that profiles used in the screen-shot illustrations have no significance and are merely used to illustrate scenarios - they have no relevance to the tutorials. The illustrations will not always match your own - this depends on how you have set your Name Preferences, and what your choices are when viewing the tree.

Occasionally I use a "vertical tree layout" in order to cover more ground.
How much of what is explained you can carry out depends on whether you have a Geni Basic or Pro subscription.

Getting Involved

Feel free to follow, request to collaborate

See other user tutorials

• A - Z of Help Topics
• Merging - Step by Step guidelines to merging duplicate profiles.
• Merging - Case Studies and Examples
  
• Searching
  
• Data Conflicts
• Tree Conflicts
• Tree Repairing
  
• Basic Techniques 1. Viewing Preferences
• Basic Techniques 2. Action Menus
• Basic Techniques 3. Profile Tabs
• Locked Relationships

Contents

Matches
Ma 1. Matches from Merge Centre
Ma 2. Matches from Tree View
Ma 3. Matches from Profile View
Ma 4, Mis-Matches - Look out for ...

Matches

Introduction

There are three types of matches (Figure Ma.)

Figure Ma. as seen in Profile View

The matches that are generated by Geni can be accessed in three ways. Warning! These matches need to be approached cautiously and with great care as they are often way off the mark! So please take great care when considering them for potential merging. If you are in a hurry scrutinising them it is very easy to miss some vital differences - different years of birth, different parents etc. One of the important steps when comparing profiles for merging is to compare the parents, children, siblings, husbands etc. It could be that you need to visit the trees of both profiles to see the bigger picture. (Tip hold down the command (cmd) button whist clicking on the link to open the profiles in a new tab. You can also use the control button (ctrl) or right click to get the option to open in a new tab or new window).

If one parent matches but there is a discrepancy regarding spouses, it is necessary to research further to establish whether the profiles are in fact the same before you accept the match and process the merge.

Ma 1. Matches from Merge Centre

Existing Tree Matches, (Blue box) can be viewed in your Merge Centre.
At the top right of the screen (in all views of Geni) there is a little box to the left of your profile thumbnail - Figure Ma 1:1. This will sometimes be coloured red with a number included., indicating that there are new notifications which you have not accessed. Otherwise it will be a grey box.

Figure Ma 1:1.

Figure Ma 1:2.

Click on the box which will open the Notifications menu - Figure Ma 1:2.

Clicking on Matches will open up your personal Merge Centre - see the Figure Ma 1:3. below.

You have the choice of viewing Matches, Requested Merges, Tree Conflicts and Data Conflicts, all of which need your attention depending on the type of Geni subscription you have.

"Matches" shows you profiles with: Any Matches | Tree Matches | Record Matches | Smart Matches™.

The type of Geni subscription you have dictates which of these options you need to, or can, attend to.

"Any Matches", shows all the matches in one list.

"Tree Matches", (Blue box) shows you what profiles in the category you are viewing, (see Figure 8 in Data Conflicts), have potential duplicates which need to be considered in order to accept or dismiss them.
"Record Matches", (Brown Box), show links to any documents that have been matched to profiles. These could be relevant or not and can be dismissed or accepted if you are a manager of a profile, or the profile is in your family group. This option may not be available to you depending on the subscription you have.

The last category, "Smart Matches™", is a list of links to matching trees on My Heritage and will only be available to Pro users who also have a subscription with MyHeritage.

Tree Matches is what we are looking at in this section. When I open that tab there are over 50 pages to consider. I personally look at those with fewer than 5 matches, and when I have time look at others. There are sometimes MANY matches to deal with - mostly inaccurate!

Figure Ma 1:3.

Clicking a blue box takes you to a list of Tree Matches for that person for your consideration in the same way as described in A3 in Data Conflicts

If there are many matches you can tick the box on the left of each entry to either Compare or Remove more than one profile in the list at once. I chose to compare the 3 matches for Mary Nugent? This is sometimes called a "Merge Carousel" (Figure Ma 1:4.)

Multiple pending merges all appear at the bottom of the merge page so that you can quickly resolve multiple merges. When you act on one pending merge the next one will automatically load for review.

Figure Ma 1:4.

Tip Placing the cursor over a name opens a pop-up window showing more details for that person. This helps in dismissing or confirming matches as you can look at siblings, parents etc. at a glance.

Ma 2 - Matches in Tree View

...Continued from A - Searching

See Geni Help - How to use Tree Matches

A match in tree view is indicated by a small blue circle appearing at the top left corner of the profile node in the tree. See (Figure Ma 2:1.))
When you pass the curser over this number a table with 3 divisions opens up (Figure Ma 2:1) revealing the matches for the profile. In this case there is just one number shown - "1" in the first blue block, indicating that there is a Tree Match for that profile. The same match will show on the profile view for that profile. (Figure Ma 2:2)

Figure Ma 2:1.Figure Ma 2:2

When you click on the blue box you open a new window where the matches are listed for your consideration. (Figure Ma 2:3. below).

Figure Ma 2:3.

Because there is very little doubt that the profiles in the above comparison, (Figure Ma 2:3), are a match I went ahead and merged the profiles.

The discrepancies were minor and easily remedied. How to complete Merges is described in Section on Merges above.

Ma 3 - Matches from Profile View

Matches are also visible in profile view (Figure Ma 3:1). Clicking on the blue box will open the tree matches for that profile in the same way as in B1 and B2 above so that you can Compare or Remove them.

Figure Ma 3:1

Removed Matches

To view Tree Matches which have been removed from a profile use the following in the URL address bar -

https://www.geni.com/search/matches/ adding the profile ID number immediately after the forward slash

Click on "removed Matches" to see those which have been removed as matches.