Dissolving Households

Jennifer ParksStrack

We have an interesting situation where two of our constituents with deceased spouses have gotten married to each other and formed a new household. As it currently stands, they are both still part of their former households in Altru.


If we dissolve the former households in order to form a new one, will we lose the former household data? If so, what would you recommend for this new household?

Lisa Saneda

I think I might try merging the two households via duplicates.

Jennifer ParksStrack

My concern with that approach is that we want to keep the former household data AND keep it separate since they represent two separate couples!

Lisa Saneda

I think that the information will still be there for both households but I could be wrong. In that case, I would create a brand new household with the two and make sure that you have each of their deceased spouses as a relationship.

Leslie Gehring

We have a few situations where we keep duplicate records for certain constituents, like a child who has a family membership and household with his/her parents and a grandparent membership and household with his/her grandparents. We don't want the information on the parent and grandparent households to get muddled, so in these cases, we create two individual records for the child and link them with a Do Not Merge relationship and include a note that they are the same person and the duplicate is intentional. Depending on how your organization handles duplicates, perhaps this could work for you?

Jennifer ParksStrack

That's an interesting thought, Leslie!

Stacy Evans

I think you should follow Leslie answer. This way you will keep the old data and have the new data as well. Also, if the couple spouses died recently, you will need the old information for taxes.