How do I changed someone from deceased to living?
Someone created a duplicate of my father and showed him as deceased though he is still living. I went through the process to make the change in family tree, but after I gave my reason statement "He is my father and I talk to him every day", and clicked submit, the system just spun. What do I do next? His deceased one is [PID removed by mod to protect privacy].
Answers
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The request has to be approved. See
Suggest you leave it for a few days to see if you get a response. If not try again in case it was a temporary glitch in the system.
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For what it is worth, someone is putting out the misinformation that if the name appears in a record on FamilySearch then it is fair game for inclusion in Family Tree. I had someone tell me this just last week, very insistently. Release of the 1950 census is fueling much of this activity.
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I can well imagine. It surprises me that the US should release such recent censuses. In the UK, there is a 100 year restriction. But no doubt that has been debated extensively elsewhere!
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United States law specifies how long census records must be held confidential, and can be released after 72 years.
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For what it is worth, someone is putting out the misinformation that if the name appears in a record on FamilySearch then it is fair game for inclusion in Family Tree.
Even if that were true, that would never mean that you were to lie and put in false data by claiming they were dead when you have no evidence they are!
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The rationalization behind the misinformation seems to be: "If I find the record on FamilySearch then the person must be deceased. Game on."
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(Scene of me my pulling my hair out.) The release of the 1950 census should be evidence completely against this theory since most people can easily find living relatives there.
These people making up death status seem to be more evidence that maybe people born less than 110 years ago, which seems a reasonable cut off, need to remain private and only viewable to the person who entered them whether marked living or dead unless they have a death date. Or will people, present company excepted of course, just mark everyone in the 1950 census as having died in 1951?
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@Gordon Collett, what people would do to get around enforcement of a 110-year-rule would be to enter "after 1951" for the death date of 1950 Census-based profiles. Since the system essentially ignores modifiers, it'd be happy, and the people creating the profiles would feel validated in their choices. Thus, while I fully support the idea of such a rule -- I follow it in my own online tree activities -- I unfortunately highly doubt the feasibility of enforcing it.
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Fix the modifiers! Program "after" to mean "unknown."
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Creative programming should be able to find a solution to this problem. While it would be a ongoing series plugging new holes, just like the never ending series of programming updates to solve security problems in operating systems, but the effort would be worth it.
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(Scene of me my pulling my hair out.)
Scene of everyone in the room doing the same.
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As my sister is fond of pointing out, "make it idiot-proof and someone will make a better idiot".
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@R Roberts This has been corrected. Sam 😊
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In the U.K. we had a kind of census in 1939 - in the form of the National Register. From its publication, if it was suspected an individual might still be alive, the line containing their details was redacted. Apparently, the N.R. is checked regularly for changes in status (living to dead) and details only become visible once it can be confirmed an individual has died.
In the case of the U.S., I guess a similar thing (lots of living being added to FT as deceased) happened after the release of the 1940 census, so there should be no surprise at what is happening since the 1950 records were published.
Incidentally, I assume there is a reasonable explanation why U.S lawmakers chose 72 years, rather than 100, for the release of potentially sensitive details.
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Thank you for the link, Gordon.
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