Tech Forum

I have a couple who was married 18 months ago and have recently moved into my ward. I need to update their household but the brother's info still has his previous spouses information attached to his record, which does not allow me to make him a HoH with his current wife. How do I "delete" the current record which shows his previous spouse in order to add his current spouse? I am new to this calling and I am trying to find some help from the other brethren who share my calling as membership clerks.

Thank You.

steven.clayton wrote:I have a couple who was married 18 months ago and have recently moved into my ward. I need to update their household but the brother's info still has his previous spouses information attached to his record, which does not allow me to make him a HoH with his current wife. How do I "delete" the current record which shows his previous spouse in order to add his current spouse? I am new to this calling and I am trying to find some help from the other brethren who share my calling as membership clerks.

Thank You.

There are potentially two issues here.

One is whether the previous marriage has been terminated and the new marriage recorded. Find the brother's record (using Membership > Individual Record in the MLS menu) and look on the Current Spouse tab. If the old marriage is still present then you need to terminate it first. You'll need to know the reason for the termination and the date. Use Membership > Records > Terminate Marriage to record the termination. Then you need to record the new marriage. You'll need the date and place of the marriage. Use Membership > Ordinances > Record Civil Marriage to record it.

The second issue is whether the previous spouse is in the same household still. Find the household record (using Membership > Household Record). If the previous spouse is still in the household then you have her record as well. If she is still in your ward then you should just use the Remove link by her name (in the household record) to move her to her own household. If on the other hand, she is not in the ward then you need to figure you where she is and move her record to the correct ward. Finally after all that you should be able to use the Add Member link in the household record to add the current spouse to the household. She should automatically be added as the spouse.

As eblood66 said, you need to resolve the marriage information first.

Just as a side note, if he's still sealed to the prior spouse, she will continue to show up on his records but should not be current spouse.

russellhltn wrote:Just as a side note, if he's still sealed to the prior spouse, she will continue to show up on his records but should not be current spouse.

Once the marriage has been terminated, you should not see the former spouse, but should see a notation that says the member has been sealed to a prior spouse. On the printed membership record and individual ordinance summary, it shows up as "Sealed to prior spouse: Yes".