OK I am sure this is an iPhone thing. (The ghosts in your phone feature).
But someone techy can reassure me, right?
Recently upgraded my phone from one outdated iPhone to a slightly less outdated iPhone. Swapped sim card over. Now, whilst I never deleted my late friend as a contact as I couldn't bring myself to - her name didn't show up on the contacts list, for some reason, on my old phone. (And she died one phone before that, when I had an android - the first iphone had a new sim card, and a new number, different to the one I had several years back when my mate died).
So how come her name came up on my screen on the new phone, as a contact? Whilst I don't recall deleting her, I don't recall seeing her name, either, on my previous phone and assumed as the previous phone had a new sim card, it only had in the people we manually put in. In fact, now I think of it, one of my sons put the contacts in for me, as everyone has his nicknames, on the phone...
So - friend alive - android - old phone number.
After friend died, first iPhone - new number, and son manually fed in contacts. I could ask him if he put late friend on to phone but it so is not the kinda thing he'd do and also, I don't recall seeing her on the contacts list anyway.
New iPhone - late pal popped up as contact.
Will ask son when he's around tomorrow if he remembers transferring her over. But it's not the kind of thing he'd do. I backed up her last messages by emailing them to myself.