Tech Forum

A question was asked in our Bishopric meeting whether there was a way to reconstruct past holders of certain positions within the Ward. When an individual is called to a position, the record of the previous individual that held the position is no longer visible and it becomes impossible to reconstruct historically who has served in which positions over a given period of time. Is there a way to obtain this data in MLS or LCR?

Not really. There's a limited amount in CDOL, but the callings tracked are quite limited.

CDOL (https://cdol.lds.org) contains a history of a few positions (basically the bishopric, ward clerk and executive secretary). Other than that there is no historical calling information available. This thread has some information including a comment by the CDOL developer.

The ward history for each year should contain the “sustaining of officers” sheet used during the year’s annual ward conference. This will contain all of the ward presidencies. The stake should have the compiled version with all of the ward histories contained within their boundaries for each year. That would be a great place to consult regarding prior leadership that may not be contained in CDOL.

Not if the stake mailed the entire stake history to church HQ as directed, and did not make an archive copy.

drepouille wrote:Not if the stake mailed the entire stake history to church HQ as directed, and did not make an archive copy.

Since the question is regarding a ward, perhaps the ward has archive copies. I was filing a copy in the file cabinet in the clerks office, since we had plenty of unused space there anyway. The OP may get lucky...

But if someone wants a list if all the callings brother or sister so-and-so had, that isn't going to happen - the information was not kept unless the member kept their own records on their own.

This same question came up this weekend as we rotated 17 callings on Sunday. My wife got released and before they offered her a new calling, she was concerned she was going to end up back in an organization she has spent much of the last 15 years in. With a new bishopric, they wouldn't know and could easily ask again. They actually offered here a calling she is ok with so that's good.

The history department is willing to provide information from past ward histories to the same ward and stake when requested.