Tech Forum

Is there a way to find the history of past priesthood ordinations that a member has received? An in-active member, who is making progress in becoming active again, indicated he was ordained to the office of Priest, but his current records do not indicate that. (Only showing his baptism and confirmation date.)

Is there a department at CHQ that I can contact that will have that information?

Thanks in advance!

lcdesigns wrote:Is there a way to find the history of past priesthood ordinations that a member has received? An in-active member, who is making progress in becoming active again, indicated he was ordained to the office of Priest, but his current records do not indicate that. (Only showing his baptism and confirmation date.)

Is there a department at CHQ that I can contact that will have that information?

I really doubt it. If the membership record doesn't show that ordination, then it's highly likely that the ordination was never recorded by the ward where it was performed, and so CHQ won't have any record that it happened.

I would advise a careful reading of Handbook 1, 16.1.10. That section describes in what cases CHQ might be able to help (only for pre-1984 ordinances), and what your options are for verifying the ordinance by finding appropriate witnesses and/or documentation. It also explains that if all the above methods fail, then the ordinance has to be performed again in order to be valid.

In this particular scenario, that may actually be a good thing -- this good brother would have the opportunity (once again) to experience the worthiness interview followed by the conferral of the priesthood by the laying on of hands.

We have a young man that we know was ordained a priest (in 2013) by his father but it was not properly recorded and we cannot accurately reconstruct the date. I tried to enter it in MLS with just the year since handbook 1 seems to state that only the year is required. MLS requires the specific date however.

Is there a way around this or does he have to be ordained again?

Thanks

barryhill wrote:I tried to enter it in MLS with just the year since handbook 1 seems to state that only the year is required. MLS requires the specific date however.

I'd take that up with Local Unit support. They may be able to enter it on their end.

barryhill wrote:We have a young man that we know was ordained a priest (in 2013) by his father but it was not properly recorded and we cannot accurately reconstruct the date. I tried to enter it in MLS with just the year since handbook 1 seems to state that only the year is required. MLS requires the specific date however.

Is there a way around this or does he have to be ordained again?

If you have determined that the ordination is valid according to the instructions in Handbook 1, but there is not enough information to record the ordination in MLS, send the information you have in an MLS request and headquarters will update the record for you.

Thanks for the replies.

Your suggested solutions worked.

Barry