Finding & Merging Duplicates

As you add records, the same person often turns up in several of them. Someone might appear in a birth record and again in a census taken twenty years later. Each record creates or updates a person profile, so the same individual can end up split across two or more profiles. KleioBase automatically looks for profiles that are likely the same person and suggests merging them.

KleioBase never merges automatically. It surfaces a suggestion and shows you the evidence, and you always review and decide. The profiles being matched come from Uploading Records and from the people already in Your Knowledge Base.

Before you start

Duplicate matching is available on every plan, including the free Explorer plan. It runs automatically in the background as you add records - there is nothing to turn on. See Plans & Billing for what each plan includes.

Matching today works only within your own knowledge base. Matching against other users' trees (community matching) is not available yet.

Where suggestions appear

When KleioBase finds a likely duplicate, it shows up in a few places so you can act on it wherever you are:

• On your dashboard, as a count of potential duplicates.
• On the People page.
• In a "Potential Duplicates" section at the top of any profile that has matches.
• In your notifications, when a new match is found.

You can start from any of these. Open the match to see who the two profiles are and why KleioBase thinks they are the same person.

Reading the evidence

Every match comes with a confidence tier and a list of signals. The tier is a quick summary of how strong the match is. The signals let you judge for yourself.

Each match lists supporting evidence, such as a matching name, a matching birth year, a shared parent, or the same record appearing on both profiles. It also lists any contradicting signals, such as different names, a large birth-year gap, or places that are far apart. Read both sides before you decide. A high tier with one nagging contradiction is still worth a careful look, and a low tier with strong supporting evidence may still be a real match.

Confidence tiers

The tier is guidance, not a verdict. You make the final call.

How to merge two profiles

When you have decided two profiles are the same person, merging combines them into one.

1. Open the match and click Merge. This opens a side-by-side comparison of the two profiles.
2. Choose which profile to keep. This becomes the surviving profile.
3. For each field, such as name, dates, places, and notes, pick which value to keep. This lets you assemble the best version of the person from both profiles.
4. If relatives of the two people also look like duplicates, they are offered as related merges. Include the ones that are genuine duplicates and skip the ones that are not.
5. Confirm to complete the merge.

If the two profiles look identical and you are not sure which is which, each one's ID is shown just above its card in the comparison. Click it to open that profile in a new tab, where you can compare its linked records before you decide.

After you confirm, you land on the surviving profile so you can review the result.

What a merge does

A merge keeps one profile and removes the duplicate. It moves the other profile's records and relationships onto the profile you kept, and it combines their notes. The result is a single, richer profile with everything attached to it.

Because the combined profile now holds more information, it gets re-checked for duplicates. A merge can therefore surface new matches that were not obvious before. This is normal. Review each new suggestion the same way.

Reviewing relatives during a merge

When you merge two people, KleioBase also looks at their relatives. Parents, spouses, and children that clearly line up are paired for you automatically.

Relatives that do not line up are listed under "Reconcile relatives", grouped by relationship. For each one you can either:

• Keep as separate person (the default) - the relative stays as their own profile, still connected to the person you keep.
• Match with an existing person - the other person's relatives of the same type show as quick suggestions, and you can also search all of your people to pick anyone. Results are limited to a compatible sex, so a son is never offered as a match for a daughter.

Every relative can always be kept or matched - if there is no obvious suggestion, the search box lets you find the right person yourself. Picking a match opens the same side-by-side comparison used for the main merge, so you can choose which details to keep. Use "Unlink" to undo a match before you finish.

Undoing a merge

A merge is reversible. Open the profile you kept and choose "Undo merge" - this restores the people exactly as they were before, including any relatives you merged in the same step and any you moved to trash. One undo reverts the whole merge in a single step, so you can experiment with combining duplicates without worrying about getting stuck.

Undo only reaches back to your most recent merge of that profile. If you merge a person, then later merge the result into someone else, undoing only reverses the later merge - the earlier one stays in place. So if you plan to undo, do it before stacking another merge on top.

Dismissing a suggestion

Not every suggestion is correct. Two different people can share a name and a rough time period and still be distinct individuals. When a suggestion is wrong, Dismiss it. A dismissed suggestion does not come back, so you will not have to judge the same pair again.

Dismissing is the right choice whenever the contradicting signals outweigh the supporting ones, or when you have outside knowledge that the two are not the same person.

Relatives are not suggested as duplicates

If two people are already connected as blood relatives in your tree, KleioBase will not suggest them as the same person. Being related means they are different individuals, so a parent and child, two siblings, or cousins (out to second cousins) are never offered as a duplicate of each other.

This also works after the fact. If a duplicate suggestion is already showing for two people and you then link them as relatives, the suggestion is removed automatically on the next matching run - you do not need to dismiss it by hand. If you later remove that relationship (for example, you linked the wrong people by mistake), the pair becomes eligible to be suggested again.

Because matching runs on a schedule, a suggestion you expect to disappear after linking relatives clears on the next run rather than instantly. Give it a few minutes and refresh.

When suggestions appear

Matching runs on a schedule in the background - roughly every 10 to 15 minutes. Because of this, suggestions do not appear the moment you make a change. After you add or edit people, confirm records, or import a tree, give it a few minutes and then check back. This is normal and expected.

If you confirm a record and do not see a match right away, it simply means the next scheduled run has not happened yet. Refresh after a short wait and the suggestion will appear.

A large import can surface matches over a longer period as KleioBase works through all the new profiles, so expect suggestions to keep arriving for a while after a big upload.

Tips for working through duplicates

• Start with Strong matches. They are the safest to merge and clear the list quickly.
• For Possible and Weak matches, read the contradicting signals first. They tell you what to verify.
• Use the field-by-field choices during a merge to keep the most complete and accurate value for each detail, not just whatever was there first.
• When relatives are offered as related merges, only include the ones you are confident about. You can always merge the others later when they appear as their own suggestions.
• After a big merge, expect a few fresh suggestions as the richer profile gets re-checked.

For more on building out the profiles these suggestions draw from, see Uploading Records and Your Knowledge Base. To work with your people directly, head to the People page.