Is it possible to turn off the blue lines in the below (a simple 2.54mm header) without changing the libraries?
Those blue lines would be on the silk screen layer, and you can easily turn that whole layer off in the layers manager on the right side of PCBnew.
If you only want to change those lines of those connectors, then just put the footprint in a custom library and use that. It’s designed to work that way and it works well.
It is possible to load a footprint directly from Pcbnew into the footprint editor (With [Ctrl + e] and then save your changes back into Pcbnew. This may seem atractive, may get you into trouble later. (For example if you update the PCB and overwrite your changes in Pbnew and you have no backups). If that happens, you’ll be glad that you took precautions and put your custom footprint into a custom library.
If that does not fit your ideas, then you’ll have to explain in more detail of why such a thing would be a good idea.
I use a 5.99 version. If you (reverse click) on the footprint and select properties, you can edit the footprint and get a window similar to this image. Note the text displayed at top telling me that I will modify the footprint on the board only and will not be modifying the footprint in the library.
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“Reverse click”?
You pull the mouse button?
But indeed, from the edit properties popup window you can also load the footprint directly into the footprint editor, and save the changes directly back into Pcbnew.
(At least, I assume your last screenshot is from the footprint editor. It’s hard to see if you cut off the menu’s and title bar.)
Also:
Both versions ([Ctrl + e] and [RMB] / Properties / Edit Footprint) work in both KiCad V5.1.x and V5.99 in the same way. You just don’t get the yellow infobar in V5.1.x.
P.s:
[RMB] = Right Mouse Button.
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No I put my lips to the button and inhale forcefully. 
“Right click” is not strictly speaking correct if your buttons are reversed as I have with my trackball. For me it is a left click. I could have said something about the context menu.
My screen shot is from editing the footprint within pcbnew.
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I’m sorry, I’ve done a noob thing… not enough info.
The shot was from the PCB layout. But my question better stated; I wish to remove the silkscreened lines around the header connectors. There are 5 different connectors with different pin count. If I have to copy them and make custom parts I will. However there are so many “visible” options in different areas of a footprint I thought I would ask if there was a “turn off silkscreen” per component. In this case turn off is on the final board, not just the PCBNEW presentation.
Thanks
I think that doing as I indicated would allow you to either hide or remove the silkscreen from a given footprint on the pcb without changing the footprint in the library.
Thanks… worked just as I needed
I still do not understand the part of:
Once you’ve removed your lines in the footprint editor, it’s a few mouse clicks to put your modified footprint into a personal library.
Updating the links in Eeschema to point to that personal library is also quite easy with: Eeschema / Tools / Edit Symbol Library References.
As long as the links in Eeschema keep pointing to the default libraries, there is always a chance that footprints modified only in Pcbnew get overwritten when using the wrong settings with [F8].
Why this aversion against library management? It all could have been done in less time than needed for writing or reading this thread.
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This is how professionals do it 
You did make me laugh, indeed
That would be a kcilc! 
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True, The original question was asking; if, like the “J1” of a connector could the silkscreen be suppressed simply by unchecking a “visible” box. However judging by the number of comments, such a “visible” box does not exist that would suppress the entire silkscreen for a specific component.
So I got my answer, thanked the poster that provided an option and was OK with that.
John
This is correct, and whats more, the visibility controls generally just exist to clean up your view of the board while you are working on it, not to permanently hide things from plotting/Gerber output.
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Found the few mouse clicks…Thank you.
John
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