Tech Forum

New ward clerk here.

Today I was updating the IOS's from our ward's tithing settlement last month. A parent marked up their daughter's IOS and gave me the correct middle name (it was misspelled). Easy fix, so I thought. When I printed off the household IOS, the daughter's middle name did not change under the father's IOS but it changed under the mother's IOS. I noticed that on both parents, the member's number for the daughter is different but the DOB, baptism date, confirmation date, etc is the same. Question is, how can I merge both membership record as one? Is it something I can do in MLS or do I need to contact either my stake clerk or SLC?

TIA for any feedback on this.

mich2fla wrote:Today I was updating the IOS's from our ward's tithing settlement last month. A parent marked up their daughter's IOS and gave me the correct middle name (it was misspelled). Easy fix, so I thought. When I printed off the household IOS, the daughter's middle name did not change under the father's IOS but it changed under the mother's IOS. I noticed that on both parents, the member's number for the daughter is different but the DOB, baptism date, confirmation date, etc is the same. Question is, how can I merge both membership record as one? Is it something I can do in MLS or do I need to contact either my stake clerk or SLC?

So far you have reported what you are seeing on the parents' IOSs. But you haven't mentioned if there are actually two separate records in MLS for the daughter. If so, you should follow the instructions in the article Duplicate membership records. Then you will have one record for the daughter, and you should make note of the MRN on that record.

Next, you need to sort out what is on the parents' individual records in the Children section. I assume that one of them will be linked to the correct daughter record; you can leave that one alone. For the other one, in the Children section of the individual record, verify that the daughter's record has the wrong MRN. If that is so, click the Remove link to the right of the daughter's name to remove her as a daughter. Then click the Add Child link, select the "child has a record in MLS" option and choose the daughter's record. That should sort it all out (after you transmit these changes to update the permanent records).

Alan_Brown wrote:For the other one, in the Children section of the individual record, verify that the daughter's record has the wrong MRN. If that is so, click the Remove link to the right of the daughter's name to remove her as a daughter.

Is that the best course of action? I'd be concerned that there would still be a duplicate record for the daughter in the church-wide system that wasn't in the ward.

RussellHltn wrote:Is that the best course of action? I'd be concerned that there would still be a duplicate record for the daughter in the church-wide system that wasn't in the ward.

If there were two MLS records, then following the procedure in the wiki article Duplicate membership records would officially cancel a duplicate membership record. Then the cancellation will have been sent to the Church, and there would be no concern for a duplicate record.

If, however, there was a reference in the Children section of one of the parents to a daughter with an MRN that is not in the ward, then it would be prudent to note that MRN and send an MLS message about that to the Church. So you do raise a good point, if that is the situation. But even if that happens to be the case, it still makes sense to make the corrections to the parents' membership records as I outlined above, after noting the MRN that doesn't match the daughter's record in MLS.

Thank you for the replies...I will check the records one more time and go from there.