Tech Forum

Hi all,

I did a quick search of the forum and couldn't find the answer, so here's my question:

We have an incorrect marriage in our MLS records. The brother in our ward is married, but his nonmember spouse is not represented in his records. Rather, he has been attached to another female with the same name and birth date, and who is a member.

The only option I can find to fix this is to terminate the marriage (which is impossible, since these two individuals aren't married in the first place.) Is there another way to cancel a marriage with a member that never actually took place?

Thanks!

brucedcarlson wrote:Hi all,

I did a quick search of the forum and couldn't find the answer, so here's my question:

We have an incorrect marriage in our MLS records. The brother in our ward is married, but his nonmember spouse is not represented in his records. Rather, he has been attached to another female with the same name and birth date, and who is a member.

The only option I can find to fix this is to terminate the marriage (which is impossible, since these two individuals aren't married in the first place.) Is there another way to cancel a marriage with a member that never actually took place?

Thanks!

I'm not sure what ramifications there are for doing a "Terminate Marriage" on people's membership records and/or history stored at Church Headquarters.

I would say it's better to make a Special Request via the MLS software and let Church Support employees make the corrections. Fill them in on all the details they need regarding the three individuals involved (full names, birthdates, record numbers, etc.). When it comes to things like marriages, I have developed the philosophy to only select one of those "reasons" if it is the exact right reason for splitting up two individuals in a marriage.

We had a sister in our Ward who had a husband listed on her record. However, she had never been married.
I sent a special request to Church HQ via MLS, explaining the problem and asking for their help in removing the erroneous marriage record. The next time we did a trans/recv, the record was corrected.
Thank you so much, CHQ.

brucedcarlson wrote:Hi all,

I did a quick search of the forum and couldn't find the answer, so here's my question:

We have an incorrect marriage in our MLS records. The brother in our ward is married, but his nonmember spouse is not represented in his records. Rather, he has been attached to another female with the same name and birth date, and who is a member.

The only option I can find to fix this is to terminate the marriage (which is impossible, since these two individuals aren't married in the first place.) Is there another way to cancel a marriage with a member that never actually took place?

Thanks!

What do you suppose the odds of that are? Have you considered playing the lottery?

Please send the information to headquarters through the messages in MLS explaining what happened and the correct information. Be sure to include the name and record number of the individuals.
Thanks.

nutterb wrote:What do you suppose the odds of that are? Have you considered playing the lottery?

Over the years, I have run into several cases where the name and date of birth were not sufficient to individually identify someone. I think lightning struck twice on this one, since the non-member spouse was assumed to be a member. As LSS has pointed out, send a special request to CHQ and they will fix it all up.

By the way, being struck by lightning is statistically more probable than winning the lottery, but being twice struck is considerably more rare. I would not try my luck any further by playing the lottery. Since the Church is opposed to gambling in any form, you might risk a third strike. [grin]