Tech Forum

We are having problems with children from both spouses in a blended family showing up properly in MLS.
All of the children show up on the mother's record.
Only the children from the father's previous marriage show up as members of the household.
We cannot add the children from the mother's previous marriage to the household. They are not in the list to "add to the household" and when selected to edit the window is dark and will not allow editing.

What needs to be done to have all the children in this family display as members of the household?

You may have fallen into a common trap of confusing children as "genealogical information" with children as part of the household. A child will only show up in the household (and rolls) if you have the membership record (or member of record) in the ward.

If the children are residing with these parents full-time, I'd suggest you try requesting their record. if they're only there part time - then you may need to set up a Out-of-unit record for them.

It's also possible that the records were never created - particularly if the parents are converts. In that case, refer to Handbook 1: 13.6.2 and create a Member of Record record for them - but you can only do that if they've not yet reached the age of 8. Once they hit 8, the only option is to baptize them.

I will pass this on. I am a Stake Clerk, trying to help a Ward Clerk. We will double check the status of the children's membership records.

You might want to make it a training item as it seems to turn up not infrequently. I think those of us who learned membership clerking from paper records don't have a problem, but those who learned in the MLS era may not be clear on that. They're seeing the children in some screens and have difficulty understanding why it's not in the other screens of the computer.