In preparing to work with the sync capability of FTM 2012 with AMT and for better coordination with my Y-DNA, mtDNA and atDNA matches I have begun consolidating several independent branches of my famiily tree on Ancestry into a single master FTM tree on my computer. I am currently using FTM 2010.

Naturally I am finding quite a few duplicate persons and am aware of how to use the People>Edit>Find Duplicate persons report.

The problem I am having with this procedure is that when several siblings of the same gender have been entered w/o birth or death dates they are quite often identified as being "identical". When I click on "remove from list" after I have reviewed the two people and found them to truly be different - the next time I re-run the Find Duplicate People list they are again listed.

Is there a way to permanently identify them as being true individuals and not duplicates? Any help on this greatly appreciated.

Bill

Bill,

I understand the problem, but could not find a solution that could be seen within Family Tree Maker.

Please provide feedback to the developers by clicking on Help, within Family Tree Maker, the Online Help Center, and click on the Enhancement Request link.

http://ftm.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/ftm.cfg/php/enduser/ask_feed...

Russ

Russ,

Thanks for looking for a way to prevent the re-occurrence of 'not duplicates' when removed from list.

I have sent this question to Ancestry feedback as you suggested.

Bill

Here is the answer I just received from Ancestry Support. (I will be looking for a work-around method)

"You had asked, Is there a way to permanently identify them as being true individuals and not duplicates?

Unfortunately no. Every time you run the duplicate finder in Family Tree Maker it will try to match everyone in the tree.

There isn't a way to exclude people that you previously removed from the list."

I have just seen this set of posts; can anyone tell me what the algorithm for the find duplicate people is; i.e; what order do the fact fields get searched on to do the matching? Knowing this would allow all of us to work better in eliminating these false positives. Thanks.