How to delete 'Orphan' people

[sshenton]

I've been culling some old bogus people. Somehow in the process I've ended up with several orphans - no spouses, parents, children or siblings. I can drag each one to the clipboard, but I get the message "To remove a child from a family, go to the parent's family and drag the child button to the Clipboard", although the person does show up in the Clipboard. But once in the Clipboard, nothing I do actually deletes the person. Confirming their orphan status, each shows up in a separate one-person Island. I want to absolutely delete and remove these people from everything.

[SGilbert]

Re: How to delete 'Orphan' people

While in clipboard, highlight the person(s), click the hammer on bottom, and Delete selected people.

[sshenton]

Re: How to delete 'Orphan' people

Thanks, but no such. On each of my orphans, the Clipboard box hammer shows the usual five option lines but the Delete Selected and Delete This are greyed out. Doing any of the others (Remove Link, Remove All Links, and Clear) give the same message ("If you made a mistake and need to remove a person from a family, just drag them here"), and the Clipboard shows as empty, but the offending person remains. Maybe they are zombies.

[SGilbert]

Re: How to delete 'Orphan' people

Are you sure the person was highlighted? If not, the options ARE greyed out.

[sshenton]

Re: How to delete 'Orphan' people

Yup, just tried all three orphans again. first just one, highlighted, Deletes greyed out, then added second to Clipboard and tried Highlighting each, then added third, highlighted each and still each showed greyed out in hammer options,

[Mark]

Re: How to delete 'Orphan' people

It sounds like you may have links in the Clipboard. There are two types of Clipboard entries: one is a link to an entry that's part of a family record (you'll see a chain-link icon left of the entry in the Clipboard) and the other is an entry that's "in" the Clipboard (you'll see a person icon, similar to the ones in the Reunion icon, to the left of it).

You can only clear links from the Clipboard, removing them won't delete the entry from the file.

Having said all that, probably the simplest way to completely delete an entry from your family file is to locate the entry in the People (not Clipboard) sidebar, click on it to select it, then select:

File -> Delete -> Selected Person...

From the main menu-bar at the top of the computer screen, or press Command+Delete on your keyboard.

HTH

[sshenton]

Re: How to delete 'Orphan' people

YES ! Gone ! Deleted ! No More !
Thank you.
I'd always thought that removing anything in any fashion had to be done via the Clipboard, so never looked for other methods. Any, Problem Solved, and now back to business.
Thanks again. Scott