I have an individual who appears to have two sets of parents. One set shows his father and mother, the other his father only. Both fathers have the same RIN.
If I select the father it shows him as having two spouses, one as “unknown spouse” with no RIN.
I can’t work out how to dispose of this unknown spouse. She doesn’t seem to exist anywhere but on this screen.
I suspect I caused this problem when I was combining two files into one. I’m still on the RM learning curve.
Can anyone please help? In words of one syllable or less?
Louise
Well, here’s the problem. You need to do an unlink, and “unlink” has two syllables. 
The unknown/nonexistent spouse is actually nonexistent. A completely correct rendering of the spouse would leave their name blank. But nevertheless, there is something there and it’s hard to show that something is there by leaving the name blank. So RM says “Unknown spouse”. It’s hard to know what else it could do. The way genealogy software works, a person is not the child of a person. Rather, a person is the child of a couple. And a person is the child of a couple even if one of the two parents is completely unknown. And sometimes those couples with an Unknown spouse can exist even without a child after combining files.
The easiest way to do the unlink is to be in Family View with the couple with the Unknown spouse being shown. So highlight the known spouse (who is John Nalder in your case) and go to Family View. If the known spouse is not the parents position, move him or her to the parents position. The slot for the other parent will then be empty.
Finally, right click the known spouse and choose the Unlink from spouse option. Then, click the Unlink button (which is saying “yes”), and you are done.
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Thank you so much! I hadn’t thought to try unlinking someone who wasn’t there…
A beautifully clear explanation, despite your use of multi-syllable words 
Louise
I would unlink the children from the combination father and unknown spouse, The unknown will then be gone. Since you have the same RIN for the father with the spouse, he will unlikely unlink too. Relink the father and spouse and then add the children back to their parents. Write down all RINs before starting the process and BACKUP the database before doing any unlinking.
This method is actually safer than the way I suggested. By safer, I mean that there is less chance of leaving any children unconnected to anybody. In this case, I don’t think it mattered. But in some cases, it might matter.
The same sorts of issues can arise even when all the spouses are known. For example, John Doe and Jane Smith might be a couple with the child Sarah Doe. Then the exact same John Doe and Jane Smith might be a different couple with the child William Doe. This one is curiously even harder to cleanup then the one we just did with the unknown spouse. That’s because one or other of the children has to be unlinked from one of the John/Jane couples and relinked to the other John/Jane couple.
So you have two John/Jane couples, one now with both children and the other with no children. Therefore, you have to complete the process by unlinking the John/Jane couple with no children. And it’s even trickier than that. One or both of the John/Jane couples could have a Marriage fact and the unlinking of the couple would delete that couple’s Marriage fact.
What I sometimes wish existed in RM was what I call a “merge families” or “merge couples” tool. What would happen would be that the spouses and children and marriages from one family would be moved to the other family. This kind of thing should be simple and easy for the user. And knowing how RM’s database schema for families actually works, it should be an easy update to accomplish in RM’s database.
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its even easier now with RM11 and the Family Side panel view (in my opinion …to see what is going on). I understand what is going on the with the tables but my understanding might be above average.
