Tech Forum

We recently noticed that a number of nonmember spouses who were in MLS were nevertheless not showing up, for example, in the "Household Members" tab and thus were also not showing up in the "Household Reports" printout. We then noticed that when we went to the member spouse's record and clicked on the "Current Spouse" tab, the nonmember spouse was, indeed, present. We then noticed the "Add Spouse to Household" link. Voila! Click on it and the nonmember spouse now is listed in Household Members, etc.

However, that is apparently causing some other issues. Most are with third party software (WardInfo, WardTools, etc) which apparently can't distinguish between the "administrative" record numbers assigned to these nonmember spouses and "regular" record numbers. That means reports generated by those programs assume that nonmember individual is actually a member but just hasn't been baptized.

I noticed yesterday that at least a few of these nonmembers are showing up in MLS. For example, I found one of them, a 62 year old man, on the Bishop's Action and Interview List in the Unbaptized Member section. This man's record looks like a normal member's record -- it has all the tabs for parents, ordinances, etc unlike the normal nonmember record that has only contact information, etc. I don't know if this nonmember's "administrative" record number just isn't "right" or what.

In the Unit Statistics | Detailed list of Nonmembers, they show up with birthdates and (if male) unordained. I've not had time to see if there are other "problems" created by adding a nonmember spouse using the link rather than creating a nonmember record and adding them manually to a household.

Anyone aware of any other "issues" created by adding a nonmember spouse using the "Add Spouse to Household" link?

Walt Bristow
Lynchburg (Virginia) 2nd Ward Clerk

wbristow wrote: We then noticed the "Add Spouse to Household" link. Voila! Click on it and the nonmember spouse now is listed in Household Members, etc.

However, that is apparently causing some other issues.

I tried that route for a while, but decided it was too difficult to distinguish administrative records from member records on most MLS printouts. Thus the benefit of doing this versus a custom "part-member family" report was negligible.

wbristow wrote:I found one of them, a 62 year old man, on the Bishop's Action and Interview List in the Unbaptized Member section. This man's record looks like a normal member's record -- it has all the tabs for parents, ordinances, etc unlike the normal nonmember record that has only contact information, etc. I don't know if this nonmember's "administrative" record number just isn't "right" or what.

It is a "child of record" membership that was never deleted/canceled. That is why it looks like a regular membership record; it is.

so how do you fix this so that non-member spouses don't show up on member lists and as head of household, etc?

The "Add Spouse to Household" link is there so that the spouse WILL appear on the member directories, and so a nonmember husband/father will appear as head of household. These nonmembers should not appear on other reports and lists

UNLESS . . .

As said before, the "nonmember" is actually a child of record (that is he or she was the child of at least one member and was blessed as a child). The policy is that we keep these records (even though they were never baptized) until these persons are 18 years old. Then, with the permission of the stake president, the bishop may direct the clerk to cancel the record.

If the "nonmember" is actually an old child of record, his or her name will appear on lists and reports.

smithgw wrote:The "Add Spouse to Household" link is there so that the spouse WILL appear on the member directories, and so a nonmember husband/father will appear as head of household. These nonmembers should not appear on other reports and lists.

I'm not sure what the last sentence means; once someone is a head of household, they will appear on a wide variety of lists, since so many reports and lists in MLS are household-oriented.

I'm also curious how the first sentence above (which indeed seems to be true) fits in with this statement from the MLS Help file in the Head of Household topic under Membership Policies (emphasis added):

The head of a household should be the member to whom all the other household members are tied in the records, usually a member parent.

Do check within MLS Help, where, as I remember, one is not supposed to create Local Temporary Records for Non-Members without their permission and without them having at least one in their family who is a Member of Record, usually a spouse.

Within our ward, I've deleted most all Local Temporary Non-member Records because these individuals have not yet even begun attending with their member spouse and I have no record in file of these non-members ever giving us permission to include their names within our Membership Directory.

Dates of Birth for adult non-members are no longer allowed to be recorded on Local Temporary Non-member Records. There's no longer even a field for such data.

We are likewise having problems with a nonmember HOH (head of house) showing up as a separate household when we print the Stake Directory. (The nonmember Male HOH shows up as one family and the member Spouse shows up as another family. I've looked at the exported data from MLS and the nonmember shows up as "HOH" and the spouse ALSO shows up as "HOH". So the export of MLS data has a *BUG* regarding nonmember spouses.)

We've also noticed that the member spouse often shows up as "other" rather than "spouse" in various screens in MLS. So there is another *BUG* somewhere in MLS related to nonmember spouses.

Lastly, we're having difficulty deleting some nonmember records once they've been added.

H. Forth wrote:Do check within MLS Help, where, as I remember, one is not supposed to create Local Temporary Records for Non-Members without their permission and without them having at least one in their family who is a Member of Record, usually a spouse.

Within our ward, I've deleted most all Local Temporary Non-member Records because these individuals have not yet even begun attending with their member spouse and I have no record in file of these non-members ever giving us permission to include their names within our Membership Directory.

Dates of Birth for adult non-members are no longer allowed to be recorded on Local Temporary Non-member Records. There's no longer even a field for such data.

Another annoyance surrounding non-member spouses being added to the household and becoming the HOH:

Consider the fictional case of Molly Mormon who has not changed her surname. She is married to Peter Catholic, who is not a member of the Church. When printing household lists, it appears as:

Mormon, Molly.

If you add Peter Catholic to the household, now he's the head of household and the report shows:

Catholic, Peter and Molly


Not sure how you address this; MLS has many areas where too many assumptions are made regarding married names. Just watch out.

The same is true of LUWS too.

rhusted wrote:Lastly, we're having difficulty deleting some nonmember records once they've been added.

I have never had this problem. Occasionally, I have had trouble with the pick list and names not showing up that should, especially with sisters, but have always been able to resolve this in the past. I have not tried one in the latest (2.9.1) version of MLS.