Persons created that show as deceased but are still living.
Recently I have run across persons in my family tree that have been uploaded and created showing that they are deceased when they are still living. Case in point: I created a relative in Family Search a couple of years ago who was still living which, of course, is only seen by me in my personal account. That person is the last of all of her siblings who is still living. All her siblings are correct with photos as shown in Family Tree when looking at the family of her parents in my tree. A contributor this year duplicated her records and indicated she was "deceased." There was no way that contributor would have known this and would not have received a "Possible Duplicate" prompt because the person is living and is not shared with the whole system. This contributor also did not have any source documents or memories uploaded to verify her assumption that this person was deceased. Two years ago this same thing occurred with another elderly aunt. Luckily I was able to contact that person who was very embarrassed but was anxious to correct that entry for me. But for the most recent incident I needed to contact Family Search twice and the issue needs to be personally addressed by an administrator taking up valuable resources in Family Search.
This confusion could easily be corrected. If a person is still living and in the Family Search system under a private listing, there is already data showing "living" that exists. To help mitigate this confusion when a contributor wants to create a person that is born less than 110 years ago- and who's record would usually show "Possible Duplicate Exists" if deceased with same or similar dates and relationships - a prompt could be generated such as "This person may still be living - Please verify that you are certain that this person is deceased by providing a source record." It would seem reasonable that for anyone who is born 110 years or less from the date of submission that either a reason for concluding that the person is deceased be publicly listed; and-or providing a source (such as obituary, funeral program, death certificate, cemetery record, personal account etc.) be required before that person could be listed as deceased. A simple assumption that the person has passed on because the rest of the siblings are all deceased should not be enough.
Many people today are living to 100 years or more and are living meaningful lives. Our Prophet is just one example. Birthday cards are easily found in the greeting card section of the grocery store for persons who are having their 100th birthday. For contributors to assume that persons who are over 85 years of age are deceased is certainly not appropriate without some kind of verification. Thank you for considering this suggestion.
Brother Woodall