Did you know that you could memorialize a loved ones Facebook page after they pass away? Unfortunately I had to learn about this 2 weeks ago when my little brother Keith Allen was killed in a motorcycle accident at the young age of 34. It is a sad and tragic story but his life can live on SAFELY through Facebook.
Below is a link to an article about how to request that a Facebook page be memorialized. Before you do this you need to be aware of a couple things that I didn’t realize until AFTER the page was put in memorial status.
How to memorialize a Facebook page
- If you have your loved ones login information you may not need to memorialize the page. If you can login and make changes then you can change/privatize any information you need to.
- If you are not able to login to the page Facebook will not supply you with the login information even if you are immediate family. (I am actually okay with this right now. I might change my mind in the future.)
- The person will no longer show up in your “friends” list.
- You will not be able to “tag” photos. (This is good and bad as we still have friends who have photos they would like to share with us. I asked that they “tag” my mom and dad’s pages.
- Only confirmed friends will be able to search for Keith and find his page.
- All his “information” and friends list has been deleted from his information page.
- I did post on his page that I was going to be doing this but I should have posted it in advance of doing it so everyone was prepared. It was a little fast.
- I sent a link to a newspaper article that confirmed his death. I am also certain that when they viewed his page and saw all the memorials they new he had passed away.
I recommended that you do this within a month or two of your loved ones death but not right away. You might contact me through this blog before doing this so I can share my experience with you.
Hi Melinda.
Thanks so much for sharing your story.
My dad passed away about the same time as your brother and my mom and I have been trying to decide whether to Memorialize my dad's Facebook page.
Would you still do it? Are there any features that you miss? Did Facebook remove your brother's comments and likes from your posts prior to his death?
(Funny aside… my mom keeps accidentally logging into Facebook as Dad, so I keep getting randome messages and likes from him… ) 🙂
Thanks!
David
David, So sorry I didn't see this comment until now. I am not sure that I would still memorialize his page. I was worried about identity theft originally. I was also worried about his picture/name popping up all the time and how that would affect my mother. If anything inappropriate happened or pictures posted we would never be able to do anything about it because no one new any of his passwords. Recently we have not been able to "tag" pictures of him. I need to contact support and ask why. We were never able to upload mobile pictures from our phones. We always had to upload from the web-based FB and not the mobile apps. That's too bad because a lot of people had some awesome pictures on their phones to upload.
If they weren't his "friend" before he passed away then too bad now that he is gone.:)
I don't think I would recommend memorializing until something happens. If it ever did you could always post a lot of things until the bad stuff was so far down the page you couldn't see it.
I hope that helps!
Melinda
My name is Lora (Armand) Simons, my son's name is Michael Armand both who have been on
Facebook for quite some time. We are the best of friends and I knew all his usernames and passwords
to his facebook and gmail account which he logged into and he had mine. No one else. I got a call December 31, that he had been in a horrible accident and they didn't think he
was going to make it. I got on the first flight down. I sat by his side while on life support for a week till
the doctors explained we had to let him go. It was me who was the only one there for him. I had to sign
the papers alone with Hospice in which I've attached a copy stating I'm his legal representative as he
had no will. I was all he hadI was the only there aside from his good friends when he took his last
breath. It took another week for the funeral and in the mean time a lot of his friends came up with wonderful ideas for donations. Once of which was the greatest which is to have a brick installed at the Rock andRoll Hall of Fame with his name put on it as he was a musician, had a guitar in hand from the time he was in diapers and a guitar in the car at the crash site, but we only have a month to collect the donation and all his friends said to just post all that information, plus info about his tombstone and plans for his birthday coming up on his facebook page as he has tons of friends who love him so much as he was so amazing, talented, loving, giving, most incredible person to walk this earth. And I said no problem, I have access to all his stuff.
I get home, I go to log in to his page and it tells me his email doesn't exist anymore, I try everything, to
retrieve it. I find out its been put in a memoriam state. I obviously cannot reach Facebook directly, can only find third parties who charged me to help to only say they can't help that once someone tells
Facebook they are deceased they can't help me. I tried filling out the page to upload documents, it doesn't work!
HOW CAN THAT BE? I'M HIS MOTHER, I HAD ACCESS TO EVERYTHING, I DID NOT EVER
CONTACT YOU GUYS. ALL HIS FRIENDS ARE WAITING ON ALL THIS INFORMATION. I
HAVE THE RIGHT AS I DID BEFORE TO ACCESS MY SONS FACEBOOK PAGE. THIS IS NOT
FAIR. I HAVE ALL THE PROOF NEEDED AND I NEED THIS TAKEN CARE OF
IMMEDIATELY PLEASE, I'M BEGGING YOU. DON'T BLOW ME OFF, THIS IS MY SON, WE
ARE TRYING TO KEEP HIS MEMORY ALIVE AND DO GREAT THINGS. HOW DARE THEY
TAKE ACCESS AWAY FROM ME WHEN I HAD IT THE ENTIRE TIME! Just because one of his
friends or who ever said he was dead, you memorialize it immediately and they didn't even have to prove who they were? NOT FAIR AGAIN, I'M HIS MOTHER, I HAD ACCESS THE ENTIRE TIME
AND I NEVER CONTACTED YOU. I NEED ACCESS AGAIN IMMEDIATELY.
I”m his mother, since he did not have a will, I was elected as his sole decider in which I alone had to sign off on the Hospice papers to take him off life
support. I've attached, my birth certificate, my first marriage, Mikes birth certificate, his social security
card, my social security card my marriage license from my recent marriage, my drivers license, along with his death certificate. I never contacted you. I had always had access to all his information and no one else. I planned on putting all this very important information on his site that would reach all his friends who have been waiting and waiting as like I said we don't have much time with some of the projects where trying to get accomplished for him. Please someone help make this right. Please someone give me back the access to my sons page which I had before with his gmail address and please someone contact me IMMEDIATLEY. PLEASE I'M BEGGING YOU. I KNOW SOMEONE OUT THERE CARES JUST A LITTE. I KNOW YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE KNOWN HIM, BUT HE
WAS MY WORLD, MY LIFE AND ALL I HAVE TO LIVE FOR IS TO KEEP HIS LEGACY ALIVE.
Lora (Armand) Simons
HM 765-630-8453
CELL 765-247-8092
lorasimons@gmail.com
PLEASE HURRY AND SOMEONE CONTACT ME I'M BEGGING YOU.