Tech Forum

Sorry if this has been covered elsewhere!
I'm a fairly recent Assistant Clerk at a small branch in the South of France, trying to work with MLS in French (not my native language) and English. I know how to change the language OK. Which helps!

My problems are:
1.We have a member who has just got married to another member from a different ward (This now new branch member has two children from previous marriage, both under the age of five). Their records have been combined correctly, with head of household, marriage, member numbers, children etc. When I go to print out a current members list, the children of this new household do not appear. Other households with children of all ages appear OK.

2.We have a member who lives just outside our branch boundary, but has a dispensation(?) to attend our branch. At the moment we use his parents address (inside our branch boundary). Is it possible to add his actual residential address to his record for communication purposes?

Any help will be much appreciated!

Biggles wrote:1.We have a member who has just got married to another member from a different ward (This now new branch member has two children from previous marriage, both under the age of five). Their records have been combined correctly, with head of household, marriage, member numbers, children etc. When I go to print out a current members list, the children of this new household do not appear. Other households with children of all ages appear OK.

You say "their records have been combined correctly," but it's not clear if you are saying that you sent in a request for combining the records, or if the MLS household is actually correct. In MLS, go to the Household Records and look up the parents' household. Make sure that the children are listed as actual household members (not just listed in the Children section of the parents' individual records, but in the Household Members section).

Also, check to make sure that the records of the children exist and are linked to the parents. When the new branch member's records were requested, the children's records should have come as well (assuming you did a Household, not an individual record request). Although they are not baptized, the children should be children of record and thus should have membership records.

Biggles wrote:2.We have a member who lives just outside our branch boundary, but has a dispensation(?) to attend our branch. At the moment we use his parents address (inside our branch boundary). Is it possible to add his actual residential address to his record for communication purposes?

You can certainly put the correct address on that member's record. I assume he is in a separate MLS household from his parents, so you can enter his own address. MLS does not check to make sure that an address is actually within the branch boundaries, and of course it is good to have the correct address to facilitate communication.

Biggles wrote:...
2.We have a member who lives just outside our branch boundary, but has a dispensation(?) to attend our branch...

Also, the word you were looking for is "disposition."

Just to add what Allan has said - there's two parts to MLS when it comes to children. There's members of the household where the membership records are "combined" into a household and the "children"s section of the parents records. The children section will always show the children, even if when they grow up and move away. Also, since this was a second marriage for someone, not all children should show up under both parents unless they were legally adopted.

Many thanks for the quick response. I've only just had the opportunity, today, to check the information in MLS. Sure enough the children in question do not have individual records, so I have made the appropriate requests via MLS. I shall wait the outcome, to see if this resolves our problem.

Did a download today and lo and behold the individual certificates, of the two children, were attributed to the members household. They now appear as part of that household and are displayed in the Members List. My Branch Clerk will be very pleased!!

Many thanks, again, for your assistance people. (Sorry 'guys' is not a phrase we often use in England).