I'm trying to clean up my "Places" in FTM and have come across a situation I'm not sure what to do with. When I click on the "places" tab at the top of FTM and it brings up the list of all the places, I've noticed that some places listed are not associated with any people. Then why are they listed in the first place and is it ok to just delete them from the list?

You have probably added them from a merge and later deleted the fact

Simply delete them

"Weeding" you places lists, especially after some merging, is an ongoing chore like any weeding exercise

John D

Thanks for the verification. That's kind of what I thought happened but wanted to be sure before I went crazy deleting things :)

If you have orphan places, have you every checked your sources?

One of the biggest dangers of merging data from other trees is the unrelated sources and places that are added to your database. I have literally spent days removing unrelated places and sources from my database. While I have nearly got my places under control, my sources are a disaster. I don't know how many I have for genealogical sites that no longer exist. Since I was unaware these sites ever existed, the only way they could be in my database was from merging data.

I will never again merge data either from online trees, or from gedcom files from friends again. If they have information that I want I will create the necessary people places and sources in my database.

Even if you reference a strong site like Ancestry there is nothing that will prevent it from going the way of the Brøderbund Software's genealogy site from the 1990.

I will bet you never heard of it. Well I picked up hundreds and still have several dozen references to it from merges. Interestingly, after clearing these out these references for about 7 years, I met the lady who provide my family's information to Brøderbund Software. At the time they were set up their online genealogy site to promote their new genealogy software.

I'll have to check my sources next. didn't think of that.

Thanks for raising this: I've been wondering what the heck all those places are doing with no people attached to them!