Fixed in Patch 1.47.49
Sims will be more discerning over who they decide is worth mourning when an NPC Sim passes away.
I'm having this problem as well and it is making my Sims miserable constantly. I'm even receiving calls about people they've never met and then the entire family gets sad moodlets. Similarly, I then later get notifications that "____'s spirit is fading away" but I get the notification for each family member, so in my current family, 6 notifications for each "spirit" (most/all of whom have never met the person or ghost)!
Agreed that it's a touching feature for close friends/family but very difficult to get anything done when they're sad/very sad every day...
I agree it would be nice if they toned this down a lot. My sim got a call that an acquaintance they barely knew had died and she was sad for two days. I quickly turned off aging for NPCs in that save. Luckily I using have that off, since most of my sims complete have the Incredibly Friendly reward trait so they are friends with many people in the world so with this new change they would be in a constant stage of sadness even if they changed to it good friends and up. I also had two sims in another save be sad for two days and I had no notifications of anyone dying and the only 'ghost' they knew was their grandfather who had died a long time before and they had already mourned his death when he initially died.
Thanks and regards,
Jennifer
