Correcting Mistakes, Using the Clipboard

Bad Links
Bad Entries
Removing or Unlinking People Using the Clipboard
Using the Clipboard to Move a Child
Using the Clipboard to Move Parents or Spouses
What's in the Clipboard
Deleting People and Removing Links from the Clipboard
What Happens When You Click Items in the Clipboard?
Other Techniques for Fixing Bad Links
Deleting People From The Family File
Deleting People Using the People Sidebar or List Window

Deleting People Using the Clipboard
Deleting Marked or Unmarked People

Deleting a Family Record

Bad Links

When you're adding a child, spouse, or parent to a family, it's impossible for Reunion to know if you're adding the person where they belong. Therefore, you're responsible for...

If you don't add and link people where they belong, then you've created a bad link. A bad link is a person in the wrong family. (Reunion does render "date feasibility warnings" when it thinks you may be making a mistake; but these are not guaranteed to catch all mistakes.)

Bad Entries

Similarly, although Reunion has a nifty Duplicate Check feature, it's impossible for Reunion to know for certain if you're adding a new record for a person who is already in the family file. This is mainly because the records for people and families are complex — they contain a variety of information (names, dates, places, facts, notes, links to children, spouses, etc.)

If you accidentally duplicate somebody or if you enter a person whom you eventually find is fictional, then you've made a bad entry. A bad entry is a person or family that shouldn't be in your family file.

The Good News

Fortunately, Reunion makes it easy to correct both types of mistakes: bad links and bad entries.

This page explains two important, and different, editing techniques...

  1. How to remove and correct bad links: removing the wrong child, parent, or spouse from a family.
  2. How to delete bad entries: deleting people and families from a family file.
Note: You can't remove a person by "erasing" their name in the Edit Person panel. This will only create an UNNAMED person/record.
Removing or Unlinking People Using the Clipboard

The simplest way to remove or "unlink" a person from the wrong family (or spouse) is to drag the person to Reunion's Clipboard. To see and use Reunion's Clipboard, select Clipboard in the Sidebar list.

Examples of using the Clipboard...

When somebody is in the Clipboard, the Clipboard button in the Sidebar list appears with a little person on it.

Using the Clipboard to Move a Child

If you have a child on the wrong family, you can easily correct the problem without losing any information or altering any other links. Here's how:

  1. Navigate to the family where the child appears incorrectly.
  2. Make sure that Clipboard is selected in the list of Sidebars.
  3. Drag the child to the Clipboard sidebar (on the right).
  4. Navigate to the family where the child should appear.
  5. Drag the child out of the Clipboard sidebar and into the children box at the bottom of the family view — where the child should appear.

Note: After moving a person from one family to another, you may need to correct the order of children or spouses in the destination family. For example, after completing item #5 above, the moved child may appear as the last child. If that's not the correct chronological position for the child, the children can be reordered. Similarly, if moving a spouse causes a spouse to appear out of order, you can reorder the spouses.

Using the Clipboard to Move Parents or Spouses

Similarly, if you need to move parents or spouses to a different family...

  1. Make sure that Clipboard is selected in the Sidebar list.
  2. Drag the misplaced parent or spouse to the Clipboard sidebar.
  3. Navigate to the correct family.
  4. Drag the people out of the Clipboard sidebar, dropping them where they should appear in the correct family.
Using the Clipboard to Move an Unlinked Person

If you've dragged a person to the Clipboard sidebar who has no spouse or children, and you need to move the person out of the Clipboard and onto a family by himself, simply double-click the person in the Clipboard. You'll be asked if you want to make a new record for the person.

What's in the Clipboard?

To see the contents of the Clipboard, select Clipboard in the Sidebar list.

The Clipboard holds two types of items: links and person records. You can distinguish the items by looking in the first column ("Type") of the Clipboard sidebar.

The Clipboard has a limit of 750 entries (people and links). You should never approach that number (unless you're misusing the Clipboard). A warning message will appear if the Clipboard is full and you attempt to add another item.

Links in the Clipboard

If you see a person with a link icon in the Clipboard, it means that the person still appears somewhere in your family file. In the example above, if Larry Linkman was entered as a child on the wrong family, and you navigated to that family and dragged him to the Clipboard, he would still appear on his own family somewhere — either as a husband or as a single male. However, since you removed him as a child from a family, his link appears in the Clipboard, waiting to be "dragged out" and dropped as a child in the correct family.

If you see a couple in the Clipboard, it means that the couple still appears somewhere in your family file. In the example above, if Kid Rock and Pamela Anderson were entered incorrectly as the parents of a person and you dragged their parent button to the Clipboard, they would still appear somewhere as a husband and wife. However, since you removed their parent buttons from a family, their link appears in the Clipboard, waiting to be "dragged out" and dropped on the parent button in correct family.

People in the Clipboard

If a person appears in the Clipboard with a person icon (instead of a link icon), it means that his record is in the Clipboard, not just a link. Thus, the person does not appear anywhere else in your family file. In the example above, we discovered that John Doe wasn't our relative (blood or otherwise). Then we navigated to his family record and dragged him to the Clipboard because we wanted to get rid of his record altogether.

On the other hand, maybe you don't want to delete John Doe. He could also wind up in the Clipboard without the link icon in the following scenario: Let's say you entered John Doe as the spouse of Mary. Later you learn that John is not the spouse of Mary. So, on the family record for John and Mary, you drag John to the Clipboard. Then you navigate to the family where John should appear, and you drag him out of the Clipboard and put him into the correct spouse button.

The key in this scenario is that, originally, John only appeared in one place — as a spouse of Mary. So when he was dragged to the Clipboard, his entire record went to the Clipboard (not just his link).

Deleting People and Removing Links from the Clipboard

Once a person or link is in the Clipboard, they can be deleted/removed by clicking the Tools button in the bottom bar (under the Clipboard sidebar).

The first two items in the Clipboard Tools window apply to whatever is selected in the Clipboard. More than one item in the Clipboard list can be selected by Shift-clicking (for contiguous items) or Command-clicking (for non-contiguous items).

To remove a link from the Clipboard...

  1. Select one or more persons in the Clipboard who have a link icon.
  2. Click the Tools button at the bottom.
  3. Select Remove Selected Link(s) from Clipboard.

To delete a person from the Clipboard...

  1. Select one or more persons in the Clipboard who have a person icon.
  2. Click the Tools button at the bottom.
  3. Select Delete Selected Person (or Delete Selected People). Deleting people is explained here.

To remove all links from the Clipboard...

  1. Click the Tools button at the bottom.
  2. Select Remove All Links from the Clipboard.

To delete all people in the Clipboard...

  1. Click the Tools button at the bottom.
  2. Select Delete All People in the Clipboard. Deleting people is explained here.

To remove all links from the Clipboard and delete all people in the Clipboard...

  1. Click the Tools button at the bottom.
  2. Select Clear Clipboard.

What Happens When Clicking People in the Clipboard?

Single-clicking a link in the Clipboard selects the link and enables the Remove Link item in the Clipboard Tools.

Single- or double-clicking a link in the Clipboard will navigate to the person's record in the family view.

Single-clicking a person in the Clipboard will select him and enable the item Delete Selected Person in the Clipboard Tools.

Double-clicking a person in the Clipboard will offer an option to make a new record for the person — in effect, moving him out of the Clipboard and onto his own family record.

The reason you can't navigate to people in the Clipboard is because their record is in the Clipboard, not on a family record. Double-clicking somebody who has the person icon in the Clipboard will show a message asking if you'd like to create a family record for the clicked person.

Similarly, when a person's record is in the Clipboard, their name will still appear in the People sidebar and, when clicked in the People sidebar, the same message (shown above) will appear.

While viewing people's names in the sidebar or List window, you'll see a small clipboard icon next to the names of people who are in the Clipboard. See the illustrations below...

Note that the clipboard icon appears at the right edge of each entry. And, in the List window, it appears in the Last Name column.

Sorting the Clipboard

The entries in the Clipboard can be sorted by clicking column titles (Type or Name). To reverse the sort order, click a column title a second time. Note that the Name column is sorted alphabetically by the entry you see — not the surname, married name, etc.

Other Techniques for Fixing Bad Links

If you don't like the idea of dragging relations to the Clipboard, there are other ways to correct bad links...

Using these techniques to remove children, parents, or spouses does not delete people from a family file. Nobody's record is deleted. Nobody is permanently purged. Only links are removed. For example, if you remove a child from family X, the child's record is not deleted from the family file. The child remains in the family file but is no longer linked to family X, from which the child was removed.

Also, using these techniques to remove children, parents, or spouses from family records does not put anything (links or people) in the Clipboard.

Deleting People from the Family File
deleting people
delete person

When a person is deleted, he is permanently purged from your family file. That means his record will disappear (his name, events, facts, notes, etc.) — gone forever from the family file.

In general, you should only delete people who are accidentally duplicated, accidentally entered, or who you eventually prove are unrelated to anybody in your family file and you simply want them gone. Scenarios where accidental duplication happens includes entering somebody twice by mistake, splitting a family file into smaller files with overlapping data, and importing one family file into another that contains duplicate records.

Note: You can't remove a person by erasing their name in the Edit Person panel. This will only create problems, such as UNNAMED person/record appearing in charts, reports, etc.
Deleting People Using the People Sidebar or List Window
Note: Be very careful with this feature — it cannot be undone!

In both cases, pressing Command+Delete is the keyboard equivalent (not the "Forward Delete" key on extended keyboards).

A confirming window will appear before the person is deleted from the family file.

People can only be deleted one-at-a-time in this fashion. To delete several people, Reunion has the capability to delete marked or unmarked people, as explained below.

Deleting People Using the Clipboard

As explained above, a person can be dragged into the Clipboard and then deleted — but only if the person appears in the Clipboard without a link icon. If a person appears in the Clipboard without the link icon, it means that their person record is in the Clipboard, not just a link. In this example, the person does not appear anywhere in your family file. I.e., before being dragged into the Clipboard, he appeared in only one place in your family file.

Example
If Tom appears as a child on family A and you drag his child button from family A to the Clipboard sidebar, Tom will appear as a link in the Clipboard — because he still appears on his own family record.

But if you drag Tom's name to the Clipboard from his family record (where he appears in the middle of the family view) then his entire record goes to the Clipboard if he doesn't have multiple spouses or parents. In this case, he would appear in the Clipboard with the person icon...

...and Tom can then be deleted by following these steps...

  1. Show the Clipboard sidebar.
  2. Select Tom's name in the Clipboard sidebar.
  3. Click the Tools button (at the bottom of the sidebar).
  4. Select Delete Person.
Deleting Marked or Unmarked People
Note: Be very careful with these commands — they cannot be undone! We strongly recommend choosing File > Save A Backup Copy before proceeding.

Reunion lets you automatically delete marked or unmarked people from a family file. In either case, people will be deleted — purged permanently from the family file.

To delete marked or unmarked people from your family file, choose File > Delete > Marked People or File > Delete > Unmarked People.

Each command gives you two chances to cancel before deleting any people. Normally, these commands should only be used if you have copied a family file and need to remove certain branches or lines from a duplicate family file. An example appears here.

Deleting a Family Record
Note: Be very careful with this feature — it cannot be undone!

The easiest way to delete a family record is to drag the Marriage field to the Clipboard sidebar. The Marriage field is the place where the marriage date/place appear in the family view.

You can also choose File > Delete > This Family Record from the menubar.