Deceased mother still showing as living on my niece's tree

KIMM

My mother is deceased. My tree shows her as deceased. My brother says that his daughter is looking at her tree and it shows her as living. Why is it still showing her as living?

Áine Ní Donnghaile

There may be duplicate profiles - one you created for your mother and one that your niece created. For living profiles, only the person who created the profile can see it. If your niece created it, you can't see it, but she can change the status to deceased. Then everyone can see it, and the two profiles can be merged.

That's how the FamilySearch Family Tree is designed to work.

Gail Swihart Watson

That means your niece created the person page for your mother back when she was alive. Your niece must decease her version of your mother's person page, and then you merge the duplicates which will be created. I am pretty sure there are 4 person pages of me right now.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

From a non-LDS viewpoint like mine, the answer is simple: as Áine says, the reason the profile still shows as living is that your niece hasn't marked it as deceased.

It is my vague understanding that under some circumstances, profiles of living LDS members are linked to their membership records, and thus get marked as deceased semi-automatically when the membership clerk flips a switch. I thought this only applied to the member's own profile in his or her own account, but based on this question, I'm starting to think that maybe that's wrong? Can other profiles in an LDS member's private space also be linked to the relevant person's membership record?

Wayland K Adams

Hi Julia You are partially right about profiles for LDS members. When death is recorded on the membership record of a church member there are two things that happen. Their family search account is closed, and a deceased profile based on their personal profile and their membership record is then available in Family Search. From this point on, it is the same as for anyone else. Any person having a living profile of the person should mark it as deceased and merge it with any duplicate records. If family search is made aware of the death of a person who is not a member of the church, the same thing will happen. The account will be closed, and a profile based on their personal profile will be available in family search.