Problem adding spouse to a spouse who was a "non-member"

[hktonga6966]

Good day everyone,

I am the Membership Clerk in our Branch and I have a little situation where I could use some guidance if anyone has some suggestions... In our situation, we have a husband who is a member of The Church, and when his membership record was created, his wife and (3) children were not members of the church but were all recently baptized/confirmed as members of the church now. The problem I'm having is that while attempting to create a new membership record for the wife (now baptized/confirmed), but finding that I'm unable to add the wife's "member" husband as her as a spouse, because the system shows the husband is still married to the "non-member" wife record (which is actually now the "member to be created" individual).

I'm sure someone out there may have experienced this before, and if so, if you have any good tips for me to follow, that would be great... Otherwise, I'll probably reach out to Salt Lake City Membership Records Department to ask for help.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated...

Thank you,
Bro. Henry K. Tonga
Independence Missouri Stake
SFB Membership Clerk
(816) 896-5370

[jdlessley]

The best approach is to contact the GSC, give them the information about the situation, and they can correct the marriage. I do not recommend terminating the marriage to the nonmember spouse, even though she is the same person, because that creates more problems.

[hktonga6966]

Thank you for the response, JD! I agree that terminating the existing marriage record will cause some problems, so I will reach out to GSC for assistance as you have recommended.

Mahalo!

[klricks]

This has happened to me several times.
I think this happens because the Mission Office did not enter the MRN of the member spouse when creating a record for the new member.
As mentioned you have to call GSC and have them fix it.