Family Historian User Group

I appear to have a standard query for 'Orphans' in 'Relatives and Relationships' but it doesn't tell the truth ! I can understand that if a spouse has no parents shown then they can be considered an orphan but I don't understand when the ancestor has parents, spouse and children he/she can be an orphan?

John, please read the Description of the Query given on its General tab.
I agree its name is a slight misnomer because it is actually looking at Relationship Pools that have been discussed before.

Mike Is there a query set just for actual orphans?

By "actual orphans" do you mean anyone whose parents died while the individual was still alive?
Or anyone whose parents died while the individual was a child? (under 18? Under 21?)
Or just anyone who has no parents recorded in your FH project?

It would be possible to construct a custom query for the last of these. The first two would be tricky.

Hi Lorna,
Yes the 3rd alternative would be best as a query as it would show people who I've added to the tree in error and forgot to take off.

But John, every tree branch will have at least one oldest ancestor who has no parents recorded.

So when you say "added to the tree in error" do you mean added to your Project in error?
i.e. They have no parents and no spouse and no children.

Yes Mike, sometimes I add a person or family and then find out that they are not in fact related so I need to know who they are so that I can delete them from my tree.
I can spot the ones who are the 'oldest' and have no known parents and leave them.

When you discover they are not related to your main tree, then at that point you know who they are, so they can be removed.

If you never linked them to your main tree, that is exactly what the Search for Orphans Query is designed to detect.

The small number of records listed at the top of the Result Set that have the same Pool number are unrelated to your main tree, i.e. They are 'orphaned'.

So if there is one Individual record in say Pool 4 then it is unrelated to anyone.

If there are say three Individual records in Pool 3 then they are a tiny family group unrelated to your main tree.

The Pool numbers with the fewest Individual records are listed at the top of the Result Set.
Your main tree Individual records are usually listed in Pool 1.

Just done the query again and all are in pool 1 so they are not orphans are they? It's a bit distracting.

As we said before the Query just lists records sorted by Pool number.
It is an aid in searching for orphaned records, not a list of orphaned records.
Did you read the Description of the Query given on its General tab, as I suggested in my first reply?

This will happen if you added a tentative relative AND connected them to a family. Once you connect them to someone in your main tree, they join Pool 1, so won’t appear as an ‘orphan’.
In the records list of individuals, you can show a column ‘last updated’, which can be sorted on. If you know roughly when they were added, it will narrow down your search.

TIP For the future. Give everyone in your tree a custom ID, then, when you add a tentative person, omit the custom ID. A simple query will then show who has not got a custom ID i.e. all those still tentative. Once you’ve confirmed the relationship, give them a custom ID.

tatewise wrote: ↑

14 Oct 2022 09:43

The Pool numbers with the fewest Individual records are listed at the top of the Result Set.

That is 'broadly' true, but not quite. The highest Pool numbers are displayed at the top. In practice they are usually the most recently created Pools and usually have the smallest number of people in them. But see this screenshot which shows that Pools 109 to 118 all have only one person in them but are listed below the larger Pool 119.

This issue of how the numbering algorithm works, and what happens when existing Pools are split or merged, was discussed at length in this topic Relation Pool Number: Caution (20556), which ran to two long pages of posts!

I was trying to keep the Query details straightforward so John would understand, but you are correct in that it sorts by Pool number not by Pool size.

Glad you got that sorted out-I'll know next time!