What happens when a member dies?

What happens when a Church member dies? How this information affects the LDS Account logins and the logins in other Church websites? What will happen to the LDS Account of a deceased member when your membership record is sent to the Deceased Members File of CHQ from the ward MLS? What happens to the information he posted on LDS.org new systems (like Calendar, Leaders, etc.) or his family data and login levels at FamilySearch Family Tree?

I would asume that as we register using our specific member data that when the ward clerk updating the member record to show a deceased date it would cancel any online accounts that we have signed up to using this information.

Though this would be one for the tech people to confirm

I would imagine that the accounts are disabled, but the data remains.

nFS already has a way for a family member to get control of information entered by deceased relative.

MorettiDP wrote:What happens when a Church member dies?

I have really, really tried to resist this but it won't go away, so here goes...
When someone in our ward dies, we usually have a funeral.....

zaneclark wrote:I have really, really tried to resist this but it won't go away, so here goes...
When someone in our ward dies, we usually have a funeral.....

"Resistance if futile."

After one funeral for a member we did not know lived in the ward, I asked the Membership Department if they needed to send me the membership record so that we could record the death date.

The good sister said that was not necessary, because a death date was already recorded on the record from 10 years earlier. She said she would update the record to show the correct date of death.

So yes, the details are important. (She probably should not have told me the name of the ward and stake providing the earlier date, though I intend to keep that information confidential until the day I die.)

lajackson wrote:(She probably should not have told me the name of the ward and stake providing the earlier date, though I intend to keep that information confidential until the day I die.)

You sure the member didn't start the rumor?

zaneclark wrote:I have really, really tried to resist this but it won't go away, so here goes...
When someone in our ward dies, we usually have a funeral.....

Hahahahaha.... wonderful! Of course, we have a funeral and after a cemetery ceremony and all that things... ^_^

But it's only a question because I'm working in a college project about "the digital legacy we give to posterity" in blogs, social networks, etc. and I believe is interesting to know what is done from our data when we dies, specially now with the release of LDS Account websites.

Thank you, guys!

We have a member who passed away some time ago but it is not recorded in MLS. Her husband is not friendly towards the church and won't give us more than the date that she died.

My question is what kind of verification is needed to input the death in MLS? We can find no public record certifying her death and don't just want to input the date given by her husband in case he's giving malicious information.

dverloc, I would check newspapers, I was able to find several dates for members as a new ward clerk that had passed away, but no clerk recorded the data. I was new to the city, and state, and it didn't take long to find the obituary.

The Social Security Death Index is another resource.

http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/

zaneclark wrote:I have really, really tried to resist this but it won't go away, so here goes...
When someone in our ward dies, we usually have a funeral.....

I read the title to the thread and my first thought was "when we die, our spirits and bodies are separated." Glad to see someone else was feeling a little whimsical.

Ah, the joys of resurrected threads. (Rim shot)

How do you correct a erroneous death date?

klabacka wrote:How do you correct a erroneous death date?

I would call Local Unit Support. You could also try sending a message though MLS.

klabacka wrote:How do you correct a erroneous death date?

You can request corrections to membership records of deceased individuals through Family Search. See this help document for instructions: Requesting a Correction to Church Membership Records of Deceased Individuals

klabacka wrote:How do you correct a erroneous death date?

Are we talking about an erroneous death, or an erroneous date?

If the member is not dead, then it would have to go though Local Unit Support. If it's a wrong date, then FamilySearch would be the way to go, particularly if the date was not recent.

Note that death dates can be a subject of disagreement. Official death dates are usually when the body has had a chance to be examined by a medical professional. But, especially in the case of a unattended death, the family may have reason to belove that the death happened some days prior.

Based on other policy for membership records, I would imagine that the date recorded should be the legal death date.

nFS can NOT correct or change ANY data on a Membership Record. It must be done by the local clerk OR LUS (Membership Department)!

KenRichins wrote:nFS can NOT correct or change ANY data on a Membership Record. It must be done by the local clerk OR LUS (Membership Department)!

However, nFS does provide a procedure for changing information from membership records for deceased members. See link upthread.

iamrkh wrote:The Social Security Death Index is another resource.

http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/

Ancestry.com doesn't make that available for free anymore. And some folks, for whatever reason aren't in it. One ward clerk in my stake is sitting on a few records of members he understands have died, but he hasn't been able to find out when. Should go through the steps to send them to Address Unknown, or is there some other procedure?

jwtaber wrote:Ancestry.com doesn't make that available for free anymore.

I believe that you can get it from FamilySearch.

You might try and sound out your local Dept of Health. See if they can provide confirmation of someone's death.

FamilySearch also has the SSDI on it as well. They update it monthly. There is one family history site that is commercial in nature, I think it's GenealogyBank.com, gets nearly daily updates to it as well. The SSDI has the death location as well as where the death benefit was sent.

When a member dies and the record is sent back to Salt Lake as previously described, the death date is also posted on Family Tree (formerly nFS). However, it's up to whoever does know the location to put death locations in if desired. Burial location and date may also be added.

Look for an obituary too, there are a number of places that aggregate data that has fallen off newspaper websites, notably Ancestry for US obituaries, that can give both of the above dates and places, sometimes even more details (see the Family History Course DVD for a description related t this).

By the way, interestingly, in Brazil, obituaries may regularly be found on local radio station websites, especially in the smaller places.

So if we have recorded a death of a member on mls and the records of these two members have disappeared off our branch records but the church hq records are not up to date who do I contact?

When you say CHQ, where are you looking?

tombarry38 wrote:So if we have recorded a death of a member on mls and the records of these two members have disappeared off our branch records but the church hq records are not up to date who do I contact?

Make sure you have done a Send/Receive in MLS.
Check the Directory at LDS.org to see if the names have gone away.
If they have not, call the Global Service Center.