This article is for help with the Ancestry® app. If you're using a computer or browser (like Safari or Chrome), see Merging Duplicate People.
When merging people, you can choose which facts and relationships to keep and which to discard, so it's better to merge duplicate people than to delete one.
Merging duplicate people is permanent and cannot be undone. Before fixing a duplication problem, you’ll need to determine whether someone is actually a duplicate, or whether they're just appearing multiple times due to marriages between family members or relationship mistakes in the tree.
- Open a tree in the Ancestry® app.
- In the bottom-right corner of your tree, tap the search person icon
. - Find people with similar or identical names. If someone is listed twice, they can be merged (just make sure to confirm that they're actually the same person and not two different people with the same name). Tap a name.
- From the profile page of a duplicate person, tap the three dots in the top-right corner.
- Select Merge with Duplicate.
- Tap the suggested person under Person 2 or use the Search by name field and type the name of the person you want to merge with.
- After tapping a name, select the primary facts that you want to appear for the merged person. The conflicting details will be saved as alternate facts. If you want to compare the two people, tap Compare Details. If there are any relationships, photos, stories, audio, video, facts & events, or sources attached to the person, they will be automatically added to the final merged person.
- Once you’ve made your selections, tap Merge in the top-right corner.
- To continue merging, tap Yes.
If you find relationship errors in your tree after merging, see Fixing Tree Relationships in the Ancestry® App.
