ALIVE not DEAD

LegacyUser

Richard Walker said: Why is it that anyone can report you dead and this is accepted as factual immediately while me reporting myself alive isn't even addressed? I've reported it, chatted about it, sent e-mail about it and whatever committee is needed to change me from dead to alive never seems to happen. My cousins are in the same boat. You may do good for genealogy, but this is one area where (to put it bluntly) you suck.

LegacyUser

joe martel said: Richard, if you are in family tree seeing yourself or someone else who is living as deceased change them to living which will create a support case and they’ll review and fix it in usually 24hrs.

LegacyUser

Richard Walker said: I did that 2 or 3 times in as many weeks. The change simply doesn't happen. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: If I understand what you are saying, when you change the person to living, the person does not switch to living. Is that correct?

The following screen shots are from the beta (test) site, but the production site works the same way (or should).

This is a shot of the person who I just created in the beta site. You will not find him in either site because I took him from deceased to living.



Step 1 - I clicked on the death information. That portion will expand and look like this:


Step 2 - I clicked on edit and the death section looks like this:


Note that the date and place are editable at this point. That is, the date and place fields have a white background. Also, the Death radio button is blue.

Step 3 - I click on Living and the section looks like this:


Living is now selected and the date and place are grayed out. Yes, the date and place still show, but they are immaterial at this point. Save is also now active.

Step 4 - I click on Save and the death section now looks like this with the death date underneath the person's name at the top of the page says living, the living person banner now shows, and Living now shows underneath "Death" where the date and place showed before I made the change.:



If the system fails at any point, indicate what step it failed at in your response. That will help the team troubleshoot the problem. Otherwise, the system should stay living...

Unless someone changes the record back to deceased -- which is very unlikely. They may be able to see the "living" record if they created the record, even though you changed it to living. Take a look at the change log to see what happened between the time you changed the record to living and someone changed the record back to deceased.

If that is what has been happening, then leave them a message and let them know that you personally know the person they keep marking as deceased is actually alive and well. Encourage them to respond to your message to discuss the person. Mention your relationship to the living person and ask for their relationship to that person. If the person is you, emphasize that they are changing your record and that you are alive and well.

But that is only if someone else is making the change. You'll need to examine the change log anyway to see when the person switched back from living to deceased, if your change did not "stick".

Change Log

This is what the change log looks like when you change the person from deceased to living:

LegacyUser

DougHo said: Tom, your answer is missing some potential alternative. I sometimes encounter living people marked as deceased (typically created with sometime like source linker from 1930 census and a reason statement like they are over 90 years old so assumed dead). I try contacting the user who did that (perhaps pointing them to something like recent obituary of a sibling listing them in the "survived by" section), but often there is no response so I mark the person as deceased myself. When you do this for record you did not create, the status does not change but rather you get something saying that it will be reported to support who will contact you when the change has taken place.

Soon after, you get an email from support. They make the change, but somehow you end up with a copy of the person in your private space. The person in your private space has stuff in the change log with your name but you did not do those actions, and none of the entries are "death removed." And the previous sources (such as 1930 census) are replaced with a statement "Sources are not available for living people." Apparently the log entries with your name is support using your helper number.

P.S. I wish there was some way to see all the people in my private space, that have been created by support. I have been reporting people like this for awhile, but only recently realized that they have been going to my private space. It would be nice to go back to them once in awhile so that when they eventually die, you can re-attach sources and of course make them public again.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Hi Doug,

I have unsuccessfully asked for the ability to search/display all the people in my private space. You've just provided another reason supporting the feature.

The only time that I have dealt with deceased to living is when I've run across solid evidence (or rather, no support for a death - there are several good sources for checking if the person is living) that the person was still alive. In those instances, since I did not create the person, I've opened a case and asked support to take care of it.

I don't run into that very often.

Thanks for raising alternative possibilities and you may have answered Richard's concern.

LegacyUser

Eloy Sanchez said: Hello, I recently found out that two of my second Cousins were still living. I marked them as living and after about a week or so, they both disappeared from their respective branch of my family tree, along with their sources and memories. It has been at least a couple of weeks and they still don't show up. Also, I have no messages from an Administrator to let me know what their status is now. I also had living children added under one of the Cousins. Please help.

LegacyUser

DougHo said: Elroy - Based on the delay you describe, I'd guess that you were not the only contributor of information to that living person's record. Most likely the living person has ended up in someone else's private space. Most likely under whoever was the original creator of that person's record.

If it was you who first created the person's record and you sometimes do work using account of another person in your household (such as spouse or child), you might use their login and see if person is in their private space.

Similarly, if you have checked under Help - My Cases and there is no case about "Dead to Living Request" then maybe your request was done under someone else's login (so they received any admin response). The person may have been put in that person's private space.

Regarding the living children of such person, are you maybe just trying to find them by looking at some graphic representation of your tree? If so and the connection is not displayed for privacy reasons but you were the one who added such person, you can try to use "Find" with their specific info such as name and birthdate/place to see if the record is still in your private space.

Brenda Rees

I continue to find people listed as dead, who are not dead. Sometimes the "Source" is an individual (who I contact), who didn't list them as dead. It is apparently happening outside of any human control.

Is there something going on at Family Search that is messing this up. Perhaps adding the LDS Church census is the problem. I've notice this more since you added those.

I'm very careful not so list someone as dead who is not. Have a talk with your people and see what you can do because people are getting a little offended to find out they're dead, when they're not. It can put a big damper on teaching people to do family history. As J. Golden Kimball said: "Genealogy is work done for the dead by the nearly dead." Nearly, not totally - or even as a technical glitch - dead.

Seriously, I think there's something at the computer / non-human end.

Thanks, Brenda Rees

Brett .

@Brenda Rees

Brenda

I am just another 'lowly' User/Patron ...

Just my thoughts ...

'NO' ... such is NOT "... happening outside of any human control ...".

Whether or not, an individual/person is "Listed" on a "Source", has NO bearing on, if they are "Added" to "Family Tree" of 'FamilySearch'.

The "Adding" of an individual/person, to "Family Tree" of 'FamilySearch', from a "Source", IS "Entirely" done by 'Human Control' (ie. a User/Patron).

A Users/Patrons DOES NOT have to "Add" an individual/person, to "Family Tree" of 'FamilySearch', from a "Source", that is a CHOICE that the User/Patron makes (whether that be, consciously, or NOT).

The User/Patron DOES NOT have to "Add" an individual/person, to "Family Tree" of 'FamilySearch', from a "Source", while "Attaching" a "Source".

The "System" (ie. 'FamilySearch') DOES NOT do it ...

A User/Patron MUST do their "Due Diligence" BEFORE "Adding" an individual/person, to "Family Tree" of 'FamilySearch'; especially, from a "Source", that they are attaching.

UNFORTUNATELY ...

MANY Users/Patrons DO NOT do their "Due Diligence" (ie. "Checking" to ascertain whether or not, an individual/person may be "Alive") BEFORE "Adding" an individual/person, to "Family Tree" of 'FamilySearch'; especially, from a "Source", that they are attaching.

Again, just my thoughts.

Brett

ps: And, such has NO bearing on whether or not the "Source" is one of the Church (Worldwide) Census' ...