Ancestry - status of deceased person

[MadNZ]

Is this happening to you?
After adding the Death Fact, the DEATH status underneath the person's name is not showing the date and place, it is showing Living. Therefore it is necessary to go to the Quick Edit to change the Status to Deceased.
Yet another pain in the proverbial dished up by Ancestry!

 

[Stuart]

I've tried a few quick experiments, and I can get that to happen, but only if that "living" status has been set first. Usually that status is set to "unknown" when the person is created, and in that case adding a death fact works as it should and changes immediately. You can set the status as "living" or "unknown" in the edit pane, and perhaps Ancestry sets it sometimes though I'm not sure in what circumstances. There are, I think, other ways to create a person and they may give different default status settings.

I think the failure to change the status when you define a death fact is not intended - a big of some kind. That's because if you then define a birth fact, saving that saves the "living" status too. You get a warning that setting the status to "living" will delete the death fact, and it does. So I think that the same kind of conflict detection should happen when you save a death fact with "living" set.

 

[Stuart]

I should add that of course the "living" status has a second use as "keep private" flag. Since people have used it this way, to keep a person's details off public trees, Ancestry don't ever override it. That's at the root of this problem, but they could still give a warning so you can decide how you want to use that setting.

 

[VTinOZ]

Is this happening to you?
After adding the Death Fact, the DEATH status underneath the person's name is not showing the date and place, it is showing Living. Therefore it is necessary to go to the Quick Edit to change the Status to Deceased.
Yet another pain in the proverbial dished up by Ancestry!

I have noticed this happening in recent weeks. It is annoying as previously the living status was changed when a death fact was entered. Probably just another bug following an update. Hopefully Ancestry will correct the error with their next update.

Recently I have had a more annoying and disruptive problem when using the Ancestry site.
Almost every time I view a record and choose to save that record a browser validation error 54 pops up causing a delay and the record doesn't save. Same thing sometimes happens whilst searching, just wastes so much time reloading the page or repeating the processes.
I phoned support about this... Ancestry's answer was to use a different browser! Very disappointing response.
I've used Firefox with Ancestry for over 20 years and don't choose to use other browsers.

I'd be interested to know if anyone else has had this problem please.

 

[canadianbeth]

I just checked, and it is the same here. I lost four family members in 2006, including my husband in January. Two cousins and one of the cousins' husbands.
All are updated on FTM and synèd to Ancestry, yet they all say Living

 

[MadNZ]

I just checked, and it is the same here. I lost four family members in 2006, including my husband in January. Two cousins and one of the cousins' husbands.
All are updated on FTM and synèd to Ancestry, yet they all say Living

That makes really sad reading, it must have been hard for you.
Can you please clarify, you used FTM to record the deaths and synced them to Ancestry?
How long ago did you record those deaths?
I'm asking because it sounds like a different situation from mine and VTinOZ. (no criticism intended, different methods suit different people.)

 

[canadianbeth]

Yes, I used FTM first, and then synced to Ancestry.
It took me a few weeks to record my husband's death in January. My cousin's husband died in February, my cousin in March (both with cancer but different), her sister in August, and another cousin in July. I updated those within a few days of learning of their deaths. They all still show as living. It is not that important, though, since my tree does not show living people for anyone visiting.

 

[MadNZ]

They all still show as living. It is not that important, though, since my tree does not show living people for anyone visiting.

Thank you Beth.
I decided to look at Ancestry support and found what I think is a change but when it came into effect and why it hasn't been communicated to users is just plain annoying.
take a look at this link Living people etc. and you'll see what I mean underneath the title of

How to mark someone as living or deceased​

it states:
Tree owners are responsible for correctly reporting whether each person in their tree is living or deceased.

I suggest you read the whole paragraph and decide whether you agree, or would you prefer it to be automatic as soon as the fields are filled, as it has been up until now.

At the risk of sounding like an Ancestry basher, if this really is a change I ask, why is Ancestry concentrating on making things easier with all the different ways of showing us Hints and How to's yet, something which should be automatic isn't!!

 

[MadNZ]

I've now had a 'chat' with 'Leaf' the Ancestry chatbot. I finally got the answer:
You’re right—it appears Ancestry.com has changed this behavior, and I understand why that feels like an unnecessary extra step. I’m sorry my earlier explanation didn’t address that. Under the current setup, Living or Deceased status takes priority. Death information—such as a death date or location—automatically indicates Deceased only when no status has already been selected. The available information explains the current behavior but does not state when or why Ancestry.com changed it. The change appears intended to give tree owners direct responsibility for status labels and help protect the privacy of living people.

I have yet to see any of the people in my trees that do not have a status! It doesn't seem possible.
I have given my feedback, it's not favourable.

 

[canadianbeth]

Thank you. So Ancestry wants me to change the status of my husband and now-deceased cousins myself. I will do that, although I do not understand why this change was made. My brother passed away in 2017; his birth and death dates are listed, as are my uncle's, who died at the age of 99 in 2023.

 

[Sue_3]

I haven't had to concern myself too much with this, as my trees on Ancestry are all private, however it is relevant when sharing any of my Ancestry trees with other researchers. I am asked, when sharing, if I want to show the details of living people. I think what has changed is that unless I now specifically mark a person as deceased when recording their date of death, they will be treated as if they were still living? Is that correct?

 

[MadNZ]

I think what has changed is that unless I now specifically mark a person as deceased when recording their date of death, they will be treated as if they were still living? Is that correct?

That's the way I interpret what is in the Ancestry instructions.
My trees are all private too but what I object to is that I have been using Ancestry for about 20 years and all of a sudden something I have relied on is no longer working.
It just makes more work!

 

[VTinOZ]

That's the way I interpret what is in the Ancestry instructions.
My trees are all private too but what I object to is that I have been using Ancestry for about 20 years and all of a sudden something I have relied on is no longer working.
It just makes more work!

Totally agree! Some recent update changes are awful. I also dislike that many profile pics are no longer showing on my tree, they are there but don't show when I open an individual's profile & when I upload a new pic I'm constantly asked to allow Ancestry's AI to "enhance" whatever I upload. NO thanks, I was much happier before this new 'improvement'.

 

[MadNZ]

I was much happier before this new 'improvement'.

disimprovement more like it! Can't say I have noticed profile pics disappearing but then I don't have too many.
If you are a frequent user of the Hints page for a person, like I am, the changes they have made to that are beyond annoying. Such as, what used to be a visible page full of Hints can now spread over two pages. It's such a messy looking page.
It takes up so much more time to decide which Hint to look at first. Why does that matter? chronological order works best.
As for the various ways of presenting Hints are concerned, how dumb do they think we are??

 

[VTinOZ]

disimprovement more like it! ...
It takes up so much more time to decide which Hint to look at first. Why does that matter? chronological order works best.
As for the various ways of presenting Hints are concerned, how dumb do they think we are??

My hints seem to be working normally for people entered long ago, but for recently entered people the new hint format keeps appearing. I don't like the new arrangement at all.