"Elizabeth Curtis" keeps popping up

My beef is that when I want to find a relationship between people, I click on the person and a window opens up - but always, in the other person (which I need to select) is Elizabeth Curtis - why?
When I want to add a wife up comes the window to select one or add a new person, up comes Elizabeth Curtis - again, why?
Seems every time those little windows come up to select someone - this Elizabeth Curtis keeps showing up. I DO have Elizabeth Curtis who was born, married and died - but why her? And how do I change this to just nobody so I can type in who I want or select from a list?
On the odd occasion Iā€™ve accidentally clicked on her name to add as a wife, mother etc. it is a nightmare unlinking her - I canā€™t delete a relationship, just unlink, which is fine but please tell me how to find the settings to prevent poor Elizabeth Curtis from popping up everywhere. Thank you.

@Fran
would you please post a screen shot of what is happening-- one for the relationship problem and one for the add a wife-- assume you are using RM 9???

Here is the likely explanation of what causes this problem and the fixes for it:

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Thank you Tom. I tried to find if anyone had brought it up before but didnā€™t find this. Iā€™ll go look at it now.

Hi Nancy, Yes, Iā€™m using RM9. Never had it before on other versions. TomH emailed me pointing to the issue in RM8. Iā€™m going to check those posts out. If not successful, Iā€™ll do as you requested.

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Because I am trying to make it happen I canā€™t get it to!!! Frustrating!!! When it does Iā€™ll post the screenshots!!! Naughty Elizabeth Curtis!! Sheā€™s hiding!

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In RM8, it appears in the Couple List and under the parents tab of the selected personā€™s summary pane in the upper left of the People view (if the person is linked to a single parent). In most other views and reports, the app substitues ā€œUnknownā€ in the name space for a non-person (RIN=0).

Hi Nancy,

Here is a screenshot of Elizabeth Curtis popping up during a relationship check. I couldnā€™t bring it up during adding spouse etc. but remembered this morning (day off) that she pops up whilst checking relationships.
If you could help me learn how to have this ā€œSelect person 2ā€ either blank or Unknown I would appreciate that - this may also stop those other odd times she pops up.

Cheers.

Actually the guys might have to help you more as I got to go to work soonā€”

try closing out your database-- reboot your computer-- open the same RM file AND RUN ALL YOUR DATABASE TOOLS UNDER TOOLS LEFT SIDE
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who is Elizabeth Curtis? your root person? Every time I run a relationship, the 2nd person is ALWAYS blank
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Same goes for adding a spouse --itā€™s either add a new spouse or select from an existing listā€¦

see if the guys have some other suggestionsā€“ otherwise open a support ticketā€” and if all else fails, copy all the info you have for Elizabeth Curtis into a notepad etc then delete her and add her back inā€¦

I am very confident that the solution to your ubiguitous Ms. Curtis is a simple sqlite operation on your database. Iā€™m not aware that RM Support use sqlite so they will likely only do (or advise you to do) #2 in this post from 18mos ago:

Hi Tom,
With over 20,000 on my database, Iā€™m not prepared to accept any ā€˜collateral lossesā€™ - I donā€™t have time nor the inclination to repair/re-add or like. Iā€™d as soon as keep Elizabeth Curtis popping up from time to time rather than destroy an otherwise perfectly good databaseā€¦but thank you for this suggestion.
I do not know what a ā€˜sqlite operationā€™ is so this means nothing to me - Iā€™m thinking it has to do with Ms Curtisā€™ random popping up.
Thank you for your time. If the only solution is to re-do my database, then Iā€™m not going to go down that road. Cheers, Fran

No Nancy, Iā€™m the root person - or at least I thought/think I was/amā€¦ how do I find this out? When I click on the little house it goes to me.

Elizabeth Curtis is connected to my family not by blood, nor is her husband, but is the grandmother of a man who married my great aunt. So why she pops up is beyond me, hence my enquiry.

Iā€™ll do another phantom clean up but as I wrote to Tom, Iā€™m not prepared to suffer creating a new GEDcom database in the hopes that this solves the issue. Itā€™s annoying, but I can live with it rather than suffer collateral damage to my database.

Cheers, Fran

Then to rid the problem, you will have to get someone who is capable of using sqlite to run this statement on your database:
DELETE FROM NameTable WHERE OwnerID =0;

PM me if you want me to do it.

Have you tried Drag & Drop everyone into a new database to see what happens?

Hi Jerry
Absolutely not. Not willing to go that far. If it were easy to fix Iā€™d do it, but creating a new database, and from what people have said there is a substantial collateral damage percentage - nope. She stays if I canā€™t get her to remain in her position in the tree - then it will be what it will be and Iā€™ll work around her. Thanks anyhow.

Just do a full backup.
Create a fresh new database.
Drag n drop ONLY Elizabeth to it.
Delete her from your original master source database.
Drag n drop her from temporary fresh new database back into original master.
Re-connect her.

Calm down, just trying to give you ideas to help. Good luck. Let us know how you fix it.

Good idea. No harm to original database and recover elizabeth as gedcom drag and drop.

There is a phantom name in the database associated with the 0th Record Number. The RM app operates inconsistently when RIN=0 is called, e.g., for an unknown spouse. In some contexts, it generates the name ā€œUnknownā€ while in other cases it looks up the primary name for the RIN from the table of names. The phantom name is Elizabeth Curtis and resulted likely from an application crash in the midst of the person being added to the database. Subsequently, the user successfully added the person and there is a record of that name associated with their valid RIN.

You cannot get at the phantom name through the RM UI. The ā€œDelete Phantomsā€ tool does not see this phantom. It will be left behind in a GEDCOM transfer (along with other stuff). Until RM includes it in the database tool, the only surgical tool with no collateral effects is the sqlite statement Iā€™ve posted.

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Thanks, Tom. I missed that you offered to excise Elizabeth.

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