Tech Forum

New to my calling as ward clerk we just had a family move in and their daughter records have been missing before they moved into our ward. How or who do I contact if the records are lost in the abyss... ? How do I retrieve them?

First step is to call Local Unit Support and see if the daughter's records can be found.

How old is the daughter? Is the family a convert? We've seen situations where the parents get baptized, the records are created by the Mission, but the under-8 children's records are NOT created. Yet, the child is shown on the parent's records.

Adding to that, some clerks seem to be confused about the difference between "household" and "individual" view and confuse the listing of the children on the parent's records is the same as having the children's records.

Last, if this is a part-member family, it's possible that permission to create the record was never given.

Once you've verified that you don't actually have the daughter's records in your ward, it wouldn't hurt to simply request her record. If she actually has a record somewhere, that would solve the problem quite simply. Before attempting that, I would look in the Children section of each of her parents' individual records to see if the daughter is listed, and if she is, to take note of her Membership Record Number listed there; requesting a membership record using the MRN is quick and accurate.

aebrown wrote:Once you've verified that you don't actually have the daughter's records in your ward, it wouldn't hurt to simply request her record.

Agreed.

aebrown wrote:Before attempting that, I would look in the Children section of each of her parents' individual records to see if the daughter is listed, and if she is, to take note of her Membership Record Number listed there; requesting a membership record using the MRN is quick and accurate.

Well, there's one of two ways that could play out. If it does link to her record, then all is well and good and you'll get it in. But if the number is simply a Linked record, then the request will fail. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the record doesn't exist. It just means that the record isn't properly linked to the parents.

So my suggestion:
1) Request the record using the MRN found on the parent's record
2) If that fails, request the record without using the MRN
3) If that also fails, then you're probably looking at the procedure to create a record.

Or, you could go with my first suggestion to call LUS and work though it interactively with them.

russellhltn wrote: 1) Request the record using the MRN found on the parent's record
2) If that fails, request the record without using the MRN

Note that if you use the Clerk Resources portal to make these requests (under Membership > Request Records), you can have the answer to each of these requests in seconds. You can also easily try possible variations on the name (in case it got recorded incorrectly).