After marriage, who decides where records go?

[lajackson]

. . . by the temple . . .

I say that because I have noticed no such automatic combing of households and moving of records when civil marriages are recorded by the ward clerk via MLS.

After you record the new current spouse information on both records, does MLS take you to a head of household screen to combine the records? Or is this a separate action the clerk has to think/remember to do?

And I do not know for certain that the Membership Department combines the records just because the temple records the sealing ordinance and new spouse information. Maybe it is happening because one of the ward clerks is picking up the slack?

I do not disagree with you. But, I would be surprised that the computers had been programmed to handle the marriages in two different ways. Based on what you have said, my guess is that CHQ is not combining the records. Somewhere, a clerk is doing it.

I suppose only CHQ know how it is supposed to be happening. There is nothing in the help files about it that I am able to find.

[mkmurray]

I do not disagree with you. But, I would be surprised that the computers had been programmed to handle the marriages in two different ways. Based on what you have said, my guess is that CHQ is not combining the records. Somewhere, a clerk is doing it.

It's true it would be odd to handle the two types of marriage that differently in regard to automatically combining households and moving records.

However, I still disagree that in every case that the records move to the husband's ward, it is a clerk somewhere doing that. That just doesn't seem logical nor reliable that every clerk has decided that's the right thing to do in such a uniform way. Especially given that we are pointing out cases where the clerk was wrong. Does every clerk make a blind assumption to request records without finding out or already knowing the couple was moving out of their ward, not into the ward?

Somewhere along the line, the two individuals are being sealed together and added into the same household. I imagine that process takes the wife and puts her in the husband's household; that's a very logical assumption to make. However, this process probably assumes that contact information should remain the husband's, and that someone else will pick up the slack if it really should have been the wife's. When you combine two individuals into a household at CHQ, the new household needs to belong to one and only one unit. So it makes sense that the process would assume and default to the husband's unit. This would cause that record to move units automatically. The process of combining households at CHQ must be linked to the moving of records. I don't think it would be possible for CHQ to combine the individuals into one household while leaving them in their respective units.

It still makes sense that this is an automated process based on assumption that is typically correct. It does not make sense that individual clerks would be so uniform in a manual process like this.

[jbh001]

After you record the new current spouse information on both records, does MLS take you to a head of household screen to combine the records? Or is this a separate action the clerk has to think/remember to do?

In my experience with MLS, I recall always having to manually group the records into the correct household after the marriage was recorded regardless of whether it was recorded by the temple or the ward clerk. Thus I am somewhat surprised that others report this happening automatically.

[mkmurray]

In my experience with MLS, I recall always having to manually group the records into the correct household after the marriage was recorded regardless of whether it was recorded by the temple or the ward clerk. Thus I am somewhat surprised that others report this happening automatically.

Perhaps this is a more recent development. I saw first hand last week that a couple was sealed, put in the same household, and records moved all in one fell swoop update. I am the membership clerk of the bride's unit, and watched her record moved out of my unit, even though the husband was actually coming to live in my unit. I had to request the couple back into my unit.

[lajackson]

Perhaps this is a more recent development. I saw first hand last week that a couple was sealed, put in the same household, and records moved all in one fell swoop update. I am the membership clerk of the bride's unit, and watched her record moved out of my unit, even though the husband was actually coming to live in my unit. I had to request the couple back into my unit.

And since the temple did nothing more than record the sealing, this would point to either an automatic routine in the membership program at CHQ or a really up-to-speed clerk who knew exactly when the event was going to take place.

I was able to talk to a temple recorder. Is anyone able to talk to someone in the Membership Department who might be willing to shed some light on what they think is supposed to happen at their end?

[russellhltn]

It's true it would be odd to handle the two types of marriage that differently in regard to automatically combining households and moving records.

Keep in mind that at the ward-level, the clerk has the power to move the records around. I doubt if the temples do. So it may be more of a "manual" process for the wards.

[mkmurray]

Keep in mind that at the ward-level, the clerk has the power to move the records around. I doubt if the temples do.

Correct, and according to the temple recorder lajackson spoke with, the recording the sealing and current spouse info, but do nothing with households (let alone moving records). But CHQ does have the power to combine households and move records, especially in an automated way. I still submit the evidence seems to point that direction, instead of the theory that all ward clerks immediately (and manually) combine households and always send records to the husband's unit. It's way too fast, automated, and uniform for this to not be implemented in software.

[greggo]

I just wanted to add that, if records are combined in one unit automatically (or manually at CHQ), probably the reason they end up in the husbands ward as opposed to the wife's is because MLS will not allow you to have the wife as the H of H (something I'm opposed to - wards should be able to place any family member as the H of H, if so desired).

[jbh001]

MLS will not allow you to have the wife as the H of H.

Perhaps in this particular case, But there are plenty of other cases in which MLS does allow the wife to be Head of Household. Some of these include, when the husband deceases, when the husband is residing in a different unit, when the husband is not a member, etc.

I recently had an experience where a husband joined the church, but when his membership record was created at CHQ, it did not automatically place him as head of household, his wife was still listed as head. Whether or not it should have happened, I had to make the adjustment the household manually.

I think the whole point of this thread has been that it is important for the ward clerk to have a method of re-requesting records back into the unit that get yanked whether by another unit or some automated process.

MLS requires at least a birth year to request a record even when a complete and valid record number is available (maybe that restriction should change). I have not seen birth date information print out on the transaction confirmation from CHQ.

However, the Members Moved Out report can be used to obtain the birthdate if necessary, unless it only populates with those records that were moved out via the Move Individual/Household Record(s) Out functions, and omits those records that were "yanked" out by another unit. I haven't tested that report to verify its functioning.

[greggo]

Perhaps in this particular case, But there are plenty of other cases in which MLS does allow the wife to be Head of Household. Some of these include, when the husband deceases, when the husband is residing in a different unit, when the husband is not a member, etc.

You're correct. I should have been more precise. I should have said that MLS will not allow a wife to be the H of H if the husband has a record in the ward (and is correctly assigned as the spouse in the same family). This is even true if the husband's record is a local MLS only non-member record.