Status of private memories after familysearch user passes away

Jeana A

My brother wants to know if stories and/or pictures that he adds to his memories as private will remain private after his death or will become public. Is there a link to the policy that makes this clear one way or the other?

Thanks!

Julie Morgan Wilkinson Nowak

It is my understanding that once he is marked as deceased they will be public. The one's he tags with names and ID#s are now public.

Robert Givens

I have dug through the Help Center but can't find an article that addresses this directly. But at present a Private memory remains a private memory after the poster dies. The problem with having an automated system to recalculate these as public after the poster dies is that some of those private need to stay private forever or for a longer time and the system couldn't make that decision for you,.

Merryann Palmer

Would it be possible to have that as an option in the privacy settings?

Maile L

What happens to memories submitted by a deceased user? says "If the original contributor designated some memories as private, they remain in the FamilySearch database but are not made public and cannot be found using Family Tree, search engines, the Memories search feature, direct URLs, albums, or topic tags." This same articles give recommendations for memories.

You may want to also see the discussion https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/93861/private-memories

Yvonnewedgworth

That is my understanding as well. Once a memory is marked private it will stay private forever unless the submitter changes it.

MatthiasOtto

Not sure if this related question is appropriate here, if not, someone please point me to the right group or thread.

Irrespective of private or public, how does one actually "die" in FS? When I pass away I want my memories actually become publicly visible, but how do I become "Deceased" in a practical sense? Since I am the owner of my entry in the tree, as long as its status is still "living", I am the only one who can edit it. In other words, who will and can change my record when I'm dead? Pass me a laptop on my deathbed? ;-)

Robert Givens

I had to chuckle at the wording of the question. I would prefer - how do I get marked deceased?

At the present time there is no automated system to mark us deceased. For members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, one the Church is notified of our death it is entered on our membership record which then triggers the status chance in our record in tree. All the duplicate records of us created by our family will need to be marked deceased by the creator of the record and then merged with any duplicates.

For our friends in Tree it is a little trickier - you don’t have the Church monitoring your record so when you die no one who can change the record will know. The best solution is to have a trusted friend or family member contact FamilySearch after your passing - providing your birth and death info (with some proof of death) and then a data admin can go in and mark your record as deceased.

MatthiasOtto

Thanks, Robert! This is my latest info on the issue also, but this is very concerning.

If I put a lot of work into my own profile to provide history for the world that nobody else can (e.g. uploading memories and writing stories), because possibly not many of my relatives know or care about what's going on on FS enough to make contact and jump through the necessary hoops to make a person visible, all that work is wasted.

I realize there may be privacy concerns, but can the FS people monitoring this forum please put this issue on the agenda. It would perhaps be nice, if a family member (and FS member) could be given a "power of attorney"-kind-of-thing by the user who wishes so, to enable the user to die in dignity as far as their effort is concerned.

In the long run this process must be simplified and ultimately automated, so that not a litany of documents are required to achieve this. Given the number of FS subscribers, all of whom will die at some stage (face it, folk!), their research is worth preserving, methinks. Having FS staff processing individual requests for being "marked deceased" will clearly not be sustainable.

To emphasize, as a non-member of the Church currently, I am thrilled to be regarded as a friend, and wholly appreciate and support all the efforts going into the FS project and the opportunities it provides. I just cannot guarantee right now I will be a member at the time of my death, while still wanting to gift the opportunity to my family to connect with me after death.

Best wishes, All.

Yvonnewedgworth

I'm not sure I really understand your problem, but I think you are concerned that your data will not be marked deceased when you die. If that is the case I would suggest you add that to your will. There a couple of ways to do this.

1. Give your username, password and PID to the person who is responsible for your will and ask them to make your file deceased. OR
2. Once you are deceased anyone can create a new file with your birth date and then merge the records using your PID and once merged add your death date.

Robert Givens

@Yvonnewedgworth - neither of the suggestions you made will work.

1. You can't mark your own file as deceased. What you could do is leave instructions to have someone contact FamilySearch Support giving your living record ID, your name, birth info and death info (with an attached proof - like an obit). FamilySearch can then mark the record deceased.
2. You can't merge two living records, or a living and a deceased record either. It just can't be done. Instead do as I suggest in the first solution.

davidwilliamsaz

Nothing is ever deleted with FamilySearch private memories will remain private forever when account holder dies and no one will ever see them.

Ward Clerks will mark you as deceased and since your LDS account is attached with your FamilySearch account it will mark you as deceased and freeze your account in the way that you left it. It you have a private memory it will remain private and no one will ever see it.

Everything that is marked as private will remain private forever. Living people can't be marked in private memories but that changes when you die. Any public memories that you are tagged in on your account will now be marked as public and be seen by everyone.

Ashlee C.

Because this is an old thread it will be closed. Please open a new discussion if you have something new to add.