* How to split or copy an individual

[NigelBrown]

Our 2 x great grandfather (c1821-75) is a man of mystery who turns up in Staffordshire in 1859 aged 38, marries and has three children, born in Hampshire (as per 1861 Census) and father John (as per marriage certificate). After many years of searching we found a family with father and son of right names, born 1820, in Eling Hampshire, marries, has child, is enumerated in 1841 and 1851 censuses, occupations consistent with his later life, etc. We "adopt" him but carry on looking. His record in FH is a quite full account of his life.

Now we find that we almost certainly have the wrong man and want to park him and his early family in a separate pool for future reference. I am familiar with how to merge records but not how to split or copy one individual into two i.e. one with facts 1820-1851, and the right one but with facts comprising only his birth circa 1820 Hampshire plus 1859-1875. Is it possible to create a replica individual who can easily be edited into the man in Hampshire with facts up to 1851, and then I can edit the original record back into what little we actually know of our real ancestors life.

I hope this question makes sense; I am (a) curious and (b) trying to save myself some laborious work.

[PeterR]

Thee is a Plugin called Clone Any Record (which I wrote over 5 years ago); it should be suitable for this purpose. Obviously take a backup first in case anything goes wrong.

[Orijohnal]

I would be inclined to Unlink the record, create a new record in the correct family, copy/paste/ the applicable facts to the new record, then delete those facts from the unlinked record. Sounds tedious, but ...

[tatewise]

You say you want to park him and his early family in a separate pool.
So you are not cloning just one Individual but a Family of several Individuals?
That does complicate things a little.

It may be best to use Export > GEDCOM File and select that Family of Individuals.
Remember to exclude Unconnected Records.
Then perform a File > Merge/Compare File but in the Record Matching Options choose Do not match any records.

Now you need to delete all the Facts that don't apply within the two families.

[DavidNewton]

I have hit this same situation a few times and tried the options mentioned by Peter, John and Mike. I am trying to sort out a current situation in which I have children who need to be divided up between two families where the parents have the same names are roughly the same age and lived in the same village, Automated solutions may well work but I am following the route suggested by John and reconstructing both families from what I know, and yes it is frustratingly tedious and there is no guarantee I will get it right.

David

[tatewise]

David, I assume that at least one of your two families have no further ancestors?
In which case, my method should be a good starting point, by exporting the Parents & Children of that family.
Then merge them back into the Project without matching any records.

That will give you two identical families, and you only need to delete unwanted facts.

[NigelBrown]

Thank you for the ideas. I have used the Clone Any Record plugin to create a duplicate individual, followed by some unlinking and relinking and deletion of facts as appropriate from the two individuals to create exactly what I want. It took less than 10 minutes. My 2 x great grandfather is now back to where he was before his early life was embellished with birth, marriage, census etc facts that have proved (probably) to be not his, and another person of the same name, plus his family, are kept separately in the same GEDCOM for now, and may one day be deleted altogether.

I should mention that I use Clone Any Record almost every day for creating new sources from existing ones, and of course I know that it can be used for Individual and other records too; I just didn't think of it until prompted. So thanks again.