Every member has one of four statuses. Choosing the right one keeps your directory honest without throwing away history.
The four statuses
Active is a current member of your congregation. This is the default for a new record.
Inactive is someone who is no longer participating: they moved away, they let their membership lapse, they drifted off. Their record and their history stay exactly where they are. Use this instead of deleting.
Deceased is a member who has died. Marking someone deceased is what lets you keep observing them properly, and it is how a household becomes a memorial household when everyone in it has died.
Archived is for records you want out of the way but do not want to lose: a duplicate you have merged, an old record kept for reference.
What changes when you mark someone inactive
The date is recorded. When a member’s status changes to Inactive, the system stamps the date it happened, and shows it on their record. So months later you can answer “when did the Rosens actually leave?” without guessing.
That date is kept even if you make the person active again. If someone lapses and later rejoins, the original date is not erased. It is a record of what happened, not a live flag.
What changes for the household
Household status follows its members automatically. One active member keeps the household active. Once nobody in it is active, the household becomes inactive.
A household where every member is deceased is badged as a memorial household. Those families often still have yahrzeits you observe each year, so they should be recognisable at a glance rather than buried.
How status affects what you see
By default, the directory hides deceased members. This is deliberate: most day-to-day work is about living members, and a list that mixes them is uncomfortable to use. The filters let you bring them back when you need them, for example when you are working through yahrzeit records.
For filtering, Archived members are grouped with Inactive. There is no separate Archived filter.
How status affects yahrzeit reminders
This one has real consequences, so it is worth stating plainly.
If a yahrzeit reminder is addressed to a member whose status is Archived or Deceased, that reminder is not sent. The system will not email a person who has died, and will not email an archived record.
Inactive members do still receive reminders. Someone who has drifted from congregational life may well still want the reminder for their mother’s yahrzeit.
If a family tells you their reminders have stopped, check the status of the person the reminder is addressed to. A member archived during a directory cleanup will quietly stop receiving them.
Deleting instead
Deleting is available, and it is nearly always the wrong choice. It removes the person and their history. Deleting a household deletes everyone in it.
Use Inactive or Archived unless you are removing a record created in error. 