Make Memories of deceased members accessible to next of kin, add a warning banner.

886EZLContact ID

When an LDS member dies, his/her account is locked away and the Memories attached and untagged cannot be retrieved by the family members. Many guests are unaware of this.

A guest is suggesting that the next of kin should be granted access to those memories. Or, please put a large banner on the Memories page AND the Memories Gallery notifying guests that any untagged Memories will be locked away forever when they die. 

Dennis J Yancey

if the person who submitted the items - marked them as Private - then FamilySearch is legally bound to keep them that way - just because the submitter died - doesn't change that.

note however that if they are marked as public - they are just as retrievable as they were when the person was alive. ( a FIND memories item will indeed find an item - even if it is is not tagged - if the person uses a keyword search that includes a key word on the description/title that was used when it was created.

Dennis J Yancey

see also:

https://yanceyfamilygenealogy.org/when_you_pass_away.htm

https://yanceyfamilygenealogy.org/when_others_pass_away.htm

https://yanceyfamilygenealogy.org/passing_away.htm

886EZLContact ID

Dennis, I appreciate your suggestion about being able to find a memory by searching for a keyword in the title. This would also mean that the guest needs to add a title. Having a banner to remind people to title or tag their Memories would still be a great suggestion. Thanks!

Dennis J Yancey

if you really want to share photos of living persons - the best thing to do is put it into an FamilySearch album (a digital folder) and then share the one URl of the entire album and everyone will be able to access all the photos in the album. (both before and after you are deceased.

The banner may seem like a nice suggestion

but there a are thousand and one other other items that we could warn people about - it very quickly becomes counter productive to be using a entire banner to warn people about things.

If you put a banner for that - then what else would they put a banner for. Soon there is no room for anything and it all becomes totally invasive.

Personally I would not be in favor of a banner.

The title and description fields are there for a reason and that alone should be reason to use it.

Dennis J Yancey

so to clarify - there are two ways to find an item that is not tagged to a deceased person

One way is the FIND memories option.

The other is sharing a URL of either the memories item - OR the URL of an ALBUM the item is a member of.

I highly recommend use of albums.

https://yanceyfamilygenealogy.org/familysearch.htm

Gail Swihart Watson

FamilySearch is not legally bound to keep the account of a deceased member locked. It is self imposed. Ancestry has a process by which family members can gain access to the account of a deceased member. If it were against the law, the process would not be in place.

https://support.ancestry.com/s/article/Managing-a-Deceased-Person-s-Account?language=en_US

886EZLContact ID

@Gail Swihart Watson,

I appreciate your response, but we are talking about FamilySearch here and not Ancestry. The locked accounts for deceased members are handled differently at Ancestry than they are at FamilySearch. Thanks anyway.

Dennis J Yancey

I dont disagree - it is rather self imposed.

but if a person explicitly marked items as private (that no one else should see them) - thats what FamilySearch complies with.

But Yes - an executor does have the option to act on behalf of the deceased - - - but if the deceased desire was to keep things private - - well thats what they wished (unless the Executor feels he knows otherwise)

I see your point and I dont disagree

Techncially Executors could do just about anything and Ancestry uses that as their option.

but at the same time - I can surely see some cases (albeit uncommon) - where the deceased would NOT have wanted the item to be shared even after their death.

In short - these are things that are best resolved - BEFORE the person becomes deceased and what they want to happen with on line accounts and online data. Which could/should be part of what is left in the will and discussed ahead of time with next of kin.