Answers.Body: <p>You will want to adjust your Deduping and Merging settings (top menu > Contacts > Find and Merge Duplicate Contacts). See <a href="https://docs.civicrm.org/user/en/latest/common-workflows/deduping-and-merging/" rel="noreferrer">https://docs.civicrm.org/user/en/latest/common-workflows/deduping-and-merging/</a> for info. </p>
  
  <p>If you're using the default rule that comes when Civi is installed, any contact with the same email will get merged automatically as you're experiencing. It wasn't good for us either because we have so many families and couples who share email addresses.</p>
  
  <p>You will want to 'soften' your Unsupervised rule (the above link has instructions on how to adjust the rules). We changed our Unsupervised rule to take names and birth dates into consideration as well (see image below).  We do get the occasional duplicate contact (Robert Smith with rsmith@example.com is technically not a duplicate of Bob Smith with rsmith@example.com according to our rule), but we'd much rather have easy merges to do than the much more difficult task of 'un-merging' two contacts.</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/C78O6.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/C78O6.png" alt="Our unsupervised rule"></a></p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2017-09-30T21:41:11.450Z
Answers.Text: Thank you. Is your screen shot of the Individual rules?  In my civi, the unsupervised "Email" rule for Individuals is set to reserved and I cannot change it. I read the instructions at that link carefully, but it is not quite clear in that part. It does say only one unsupervised rule for each type, so let's see if creating a new unsupervised rule will turn it off. Does a higher number for the weight make it more important?  If I want the First and Last name to be considered more than the email address before it's flagged a duplicate would I set it at names 10 and email 5 for example?
Answers.UserDisplayName: fdarn
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2017-09-30T22:20:35.663Z
Answers.Text: Yes, sorry for the confusion, you'll need to edit the current "Email" rule and change it to General.  Then you can create a new rule and mark it Unsupervised.  My screen shot is of our Unsupervised Individual rule.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Allen Hutchison
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2017-09-30T22:22:59.043Z
Answers.Text: The numbers in the weight column are a bit artificial. They have meaning you give them.  We could make the weight of First and Last Name 1 each, and birthdate and email 2 and then a threshold of 4 and it would all work the same.  What we are saying with our rule is that a matching email and both first and last names will trigger a duplicate. An email and only a last name will not (thus allowing parents and children to have the same email and be different contacts).
Answers.UserDisplayName: Allen Hutchison
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2017-09-30T22:29:34.647Z
Answers.Text: For your example, if FN=10, LN=10, and email=5 with a threshold of 20, you would only ever reach the threshold if the names matched; email would be irrelevant. If the threshold were 15, email and one of the names would trigger a duplicate, thus a child and a parent would be considered the same person if they shared a last name.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Allen Hutchison
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2017-09-30T23:04:33.197Z
Answers.Text: Thank you. I just set it as you suggested and ran tests on every possible scenario I can think of.  It is working perfectly.  I appreciate your help.  This issue has been solved.
Answers.UserDisplayName: fdarn
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2017-09-30T23:08:45.453Z
Answers.Text: Excellent, glad it's working for you!
Answers.UserDisplayName: Allen Hutchison
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2017-10-01T03:35:49.690Z
Answers.Text: WARNING. If a contact has 2 identical email addresses, then based on the numbers you use the will count as a duplicate even if their name is different (unless this 'bug' has been fixed in civi and I haven't noticed). We always recommend using much higher values for name than for email to avoid this. eg F = 10, L = 10, Dob = 20, Email = 2, and set the threshold to only 22 or something similar to destrengthen the value of multiple email records (not certain my numbers here make sense, as I haven't really accounted for use of DoB)
Answers.UserDisplayName: petednz - fuzion
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2017-09-30T20:27:26.157Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2017-09-30T20:34:29.623Z
Answers.LastEditDate: 2017-09-30T20:34:29.623Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Allen Hutchison
Body: <p>On Civi 4.7.22 and Wordpress 4.8.22</p>
  
  <p>Here is the Scenario:
  Jane Doe uses her email address to signup her son Joe Doe at 123 Red Road
  Then Jane at 321 Blue St. decides to become a member herself, using the same email address she used to signup her son.</p>
  
  <p>Instead of creating separate accounts for Jane and Joe, Jane's information overwrites Joe's information and suddenly Joe doesn't exist to us anymore. 
  What rules do I need to change to allow the same email address to be applied to different members?</p>
  
  <p>I checked the box in the profile settings to allow duplicate contact to be created.  That did not make any difference. Even when I check "Issue warning and do not save" it still goes through and overwrites the information of the first person.  </p>
  
  <p>This is a scenario that happens often in our organization, so I hope there is a solution to this. </p>
  
Tags: <duplicate-contacts>
Title: Allow duplicate contacts with the same email
ThreadText: # Allow duplicate contacts with the same email
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2017-09-30)
  
  On Civi 4.7.22 and Wordpress 4.8.22
  
  Here is the Scenario:
  Jane Doe uses her email address to signup her son Joe Doe at 123 Red Road
  Then Jane at 321 Blue St. decides to become a member herself, using the same email address she used to signup her son.
  
  Instead of creating separate accounts for Jane and Joe, Jane's information overwrites Joe's information and suddenly Joe doesn't exist to us anymore.
  What rules do I need to change to allow the same email address to be applied to different members?
  
  I checked the box in the profile settings to allow duplicate contact to be created. That did not make any difference. Even when I check "Issue warning and do not save" it still goes through and overwrites the information of the first person.
  
  This is a scenario that happens often in our organization, so I hope there is a solution to this.
  
  **Tags:** duplicate-contacts
  
  
  ---
  
  ## 1 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_1 on 2017-09-30. Score: 6 | Accepted answer
  
  You will want to adjust your Deduping and Merging settings (top menu > Contacts > Find and Merge Duplicate Contacts). See <https://docs.civicrm.org/user/en/latest/common-workflows/deduping-and-merging/> for info.
  
  If you're using the default rule that comes when Civi is installed, any contact with the same email will get merged automatically as you're experiencing. It wasn't good for us either because we have so many families and couples who share email addresses.
  
  You will want to 'soften' your Unsupervised rule (the above link has instructions on how to adjust the rules). We changed our Unsupervised rule to take names and birth dates into consideration as well (see image below). We do get the occasional duplicate contact (Robert Smith with rsmith@example.com is technically not a duplicate of Bob Smith with rsmith@example.com according to our rule), but we'd much rather have easy merges to do than the much more difficult task of 'un-merging' two contacts.
  
  [![Our unsupervised rule](https://i.sstatic.net/C78O6.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/C78O6.png)
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_0**: Thank you. Is your screen shot of the Individual rules?  In my civi, the unsupervised "Email" rule for Individuals is set to reserved and I cannot change it. I read the instructions at that link carefully, but it is not quite clear in that part. It does say only one unsupervised rule for each type, so let's see if creating a new unsupervised rule will turn it off. Does a higher number for the weight make it more important?  If I want the First and Last name to be considered more than the email address before it's flagged a duplicate would I set it at names 10 and email 5 for example?  
  > **username_1**: Yes, sorry for the confusion, you'll need to edit the current "Email" rule and change it to General.  Then you can create a new rule and mark it Unsupervised.  My screen shot is of our Unsupervised Individual rule.  
  > **username_1**: The numbers in the weight column are a bit artificial. They have meaning you give them.  We could make the weight of First and Last Name 1 each, and birthdate and email 2 and then a threshold of 4 and it would all work the same.  What we are saying with our rule is that a matching email and both first and last names will trigger a duplicate. An email and only a last name will not (thus allowing parents and children to have the same email and be different contacts).  
  > **username_1**: For your example, if FN=10, LN=10, and email=5 with a threshold of 20, you would only ever reach the threshold if the names matched; email would be irrelevant. If the threshold were 15, email and one of the names would trigger a duplicate, thus a child and a parent would be considered the same person if they shared a last name.  
  > **username_0**: Thank you. I just set it as you suggested and ran tests on every possible scenario I can think of.  It is working perfectly.  I appreciate your help.  This issue has been solved.  
  > **username_1**: Excellent, glad it's working for you!  
  > **username_2**: WARNING. If a contact has 2 identical email addresses, then based on the numbers you use the will count as a duplicate even if their name is different (unless this 'bug' has been fixed in civi and I haven't noticed). We always recommend using much higher values for name than for email to avoid this. eg F = 10, L = 10, Dob = 20, Email = 2, and set the threshold to only 22 or something similar to destrengthen the value of multiple email records (not certain my numbers here make sense, as I haven't really accounted for use of DoB)  
  
  ---
  
  