How to Let your Online Friends know you have Died.

My great Uncle I had become great friends through the internet and he sent me invaluable genealogy information about our family.

One day I received an email from his family notifying me that he had passed away. I was saddened but also grateful that they had been thoughtful enough to let me know of his passing.

We have lots of family and friends that we talk to online, and some we have never meet in person, that would want to know if we had died.

Here is how you can let people know that you have passed away after you have passed away.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. There are several online websites that you can sign up for that will allow you to send email notifications to other people in the event of your death. This is done by filling out all the information while you are alive and then the email is triggered and sent after you have not been online for many weeks or months. Some of them are:
   
   The Last Email - prerecorded email messages, where you can leave wonderful messages, videos and photos for your love ones. You can send a different one to everyone on your email list. YouDeparted, is another one but there is a charge, but you are able to give information like passwords and where the security box is located and where you have hidden something.

2. There is a software program that you can download called DeadMansSwitch that will allow you to specify certain tasks be done in the event you don't log in within a particular time frame. Dead Man's Switch will automatically delete files, send emails, post to websites etc. This is a great way to send a ledger of your passwords to someone when you die. Deathswitch is another one that is a small fee. It sends you an email password periodically that you need to answer so that it knows you are still alive.

3. There is a website that lets you do online estate planning that helps you get everything organized called PrivateMatters.com. It has a fee but it covers everything and may even make you aware of things that you should let your family know about that you wouldn't think about.

4. Whichever one you decide to use or if you decide to write it down and ask your family to send an email to your contact list, it will be appreciated by everyone and will let them celebrate your life in their own private way.

[WarmTribute]

on 7/19/2009 Jerrie, this is a great article and topic. I never gave much thought to how to notify family and friends at the time of death. When my brother passed away I simply sent out E-mails to as many of his friends that I knew and made calls to my family. It's certainly worth thinking about, since at the moment your loved one passes away - you really don't want to think of much else and you really don't want to have to do anything.

You mentioned there are several online memorial sites out there. One of them is actually a site I created in honor of my brother, Warm Tribute Online Memorials. It has more of an invitation feature than a notification, since I thought of Warm Tribute being more of a site used to create a tribute a couple of weeks after the loss. But urgency is extremely important. Thanks for that food for thought.

If you have a chance, please take a look at the site (Warm...

[bevsue]

on 2/8/2009 This is great information. Thank you for that. I lost a good friend a few years ago who had many email buddies. I was only able to contact a few of them and it has always bothered me that there are others who had no way of knowing what happened to him. 5 stars for very useful info.

[vallain]

on 1/26/2009 I hadn't thought about all my online friends and how they would know I had died. Thought provoking.

[MIghtyDreamer]

on 10/5/2008 I was thinking of writing something on this all last week. Excellent research and information. Every one should think about utilizing some or all of the options in this article. I know I'm going to make a copy of it. thanks.