Tech Forum

I am the Ward Clerk, doing a majority of membership tasks as well.

A sister in our Ward was moved by her son to a rest home in November. Prior to that she had lived at her son's home with his family in our ward. She passed away on Dec 6th. Her son would like to verify/update info on her record relative to her death. However, it appears that her record was requested out of our ward on Nov 25th, less than 2 weeks prior to her passing. Perhaps it was requested by the clerk at the branch that included the rest home where she moved? Not sure how to tell where it went or where it is now.

What is the best way for her son to check his deceased mother's record for accuracy? I could not find a place to request the record in MLS.

Thanks
Neil

There's a couple of options:

One is to call Local Unit Support and ask them to verify that she's been recorded as deceased.

The second is to send a Special Request via MLS, but I'm not sure as you'd get a confirmation.

Another is to have the member check to see if she's recorded in FamilySearch. However, I'm not sure how timely the updates are. Even then, he'd have to make sure the information about her death came from the membership records and wasn't just recorded by someone else.

Thanks. I have directed the member to the new family search option. His wife is proficient with that, and we could see that his mother's record was already available there. He and his wife will figure out how to have the "burial" info updated, as that was the only thing that appeared missing/incomplete.

Thanks,
Neil

I have been successful on several occasions with the "Special Request" option via MLS. As the son is in your ward, his mother's Membership Number should be on his record. You can just send a message to Membership Support through MLS with her full name, birthdate, and membership number. Tell them the details to record her passing.

I always received a nice reply back that they had made the change in the record.

Thanks, Dave. I will let the member know that this option exists as well.

You could request the record back to your ward using the information from the sons record. If death has not yet been recorded you will receive the record. Then you can work with the son to ensure the correct information is recorded for the death.

Gary_Miller wrote:You could request the record back to your ward using the information from the sons record.

Normally, that would be a bad idea. But in this case, since the member is deceased, that may not be such a bad idea. However, if they are already recorded as deceased, you won't get the record and won't be able to do any updates with that method.

Not always a good Idea but in this case maybe the best way unless the update has already been made.

I had a member come to me trying to add ordinances in family search (FS) for her dad, he had been deceased for ten years. However FS had him flagged as still living so could not make the changes. Did a record request so we could get him deceased, the record was in the unknown files at HQ. Fixed the death information with in a week his information was in FS.

Sometimes that's the best thing to do especially if you know they are deceased.