For an explanation of what Basic Record Merging and Branch Merging both are, see Introduction to Merging - the Three Types.
There are very few restrictions on what records can be merged in Basic Record Merging:
If in doubt try selecting 2 records for merging and see whether you can get as far as displaying them both side-by-side in the Merge/Compare Dialog. Family Historian will not let you get that far if the 2 records cannot be matched for merging.
Basic Record Merging can be used to merge records of any type - not just Individual records. For example, you might discover that you had accidentally created two source records for the same certificate, say. These two source records should really be one. If you merge them, all source citations (or other links) to either record will now be linked to the new merged source record.
To select 2 records for merging, you select either or both of them and
click on on
the Edit menu (do not select on the File menu as that is for File Merging). A Selector
Dialog will appear which will let you confirm the records you want, and
their order. The second record will be merged into the first. It doesn’t
make much difference which you merge into which, but if one record is
older or larger than the other it probably makes sense to put that one
first. You can re-order the records in the Selector Dialog (use the up
and down arrow buttons in the top-right corner).
When you press OK to confirm the selected records, the 2 records are displayed side-by-side in the Merge/Compare Dialog. At this stage, no actual merging has yet taken place. This is your opportunity to compare the two records and make sure that you wish to merge them. It is also your opportunity to decide how they should be merged, and to override Family Historian’s proposed way of doing it, if you want to. Suppose, for example, there are differences between the two records. The name in one record might be different from the name in the other. In this case, Family Historian will, by default, keep both versions of the name. You might decide that you don’t want to keep both versions - in which case you could choose to flag one of the two names to be discarded (to do this, select it and click on the button). When you do this, the field is not immediately discarded. No change to your file will take place until you are happy both that the records should be merged, and about how they are to be merged. It is only when you finally click on the button that the records will be merged, and it is only at this point that any fields which you have flagged to be discarded, will in fact be discarded. Prior to that, you can click on the Cancel button at any time and no changes will have been made.
Initially, Branch Merging is exactly like Basic Record Merging for an Individual or Family record. What turns it into a Branch Merge is that instead of simply merging the selected records, you look at the links to other records from your starting pair of records, and if the linked records appear to be duplicates you match the links. To match them, select each link (click on the link label, which typically will be 'Parents Family' or 'Spouse Family' or similar) and press the button. Press-and-hold the Ctrl key to select the second link without unselecting the first. Ordinarily you would not be allowed to match links to as-yet- unmatched records, but in this case you will be asked whether you want to match the linked records (assuming that they can validly be matched). If you answer Yes, the 2 linked records will be added to the list of records to be matched. You can then examine their links to see if they too are linked to yet more pairs of duplicates. If so, you can repeat the process indefinitely, gradually building up a list of duplicated records that are all linked together forming 2 duplicated branches.
Why do it this way? Because the Merge/Compare dialog is designed not only for merging records but also for comparing them. If you want to work out which records in a branch are duplicated, the Merge/Compare dialog is the easiest way of doing it. As with Basic Merging (and, as we shall see, with File Merging too) no actual changes to your file take place until you click on the button to initiate the merge process. Simply matching records does not, of itself, cause them to be merged. You can always unmatch them if you wish to, before starting the merge process. It is only records that are matched when you click on the button that will be merged. And, again, prior to clicking on Merge, you can cancel the entire process at any time.
If you unmatch 2 records, all other records that you matched after these 2 records, will also be unmatched. You will not be allowed to unmatch the original 2 records as this would leave you with no records to merge and no way of adding further matching records to the branch merge.