Troubleshooting unrecorded Baptism and Confirmation

Discuss questions around local unit policies for membership (creating records, transferring records, etc.) This forum should not contain specific financial or membership information.
Post Reply
sgcurtis
New Member
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun Feb 06, 2011 2:18 pm

Troubleshooting unrecorded Baptism and Confirmation

#1

Post by sgcurtis »

I am working with a ward in our stake with some membership records issues, specifically around youth who are not showing up as members. As an example, a 14-year-old daughter appears to have a membership record in MLS, but you won't find it in the list of individual members. The only way to find the record is to go to a parent's record and pull up the children. There is no baptism/confirmation date, and the young woman does not appear on the Bishop's Action and Interview List (which is why this didn't show up during the membership audit).

Any thoughts on what the root cause might be? It seems to be something with how the clerks are recording/creating membership records. At first I thought they were "recording" baptisms by only filling out the certificate, but in that instance the individuals would still show up on the action and interview list. The only other item I can think of is that when they requested the household into the ward, they did so individual by individual and left off one. But this has occurred with at least 4 different records in 4 different households in the ward, so I'm not expecting that to be the cause.

Additionally, I checked the MLS export, and those individuals aren't exported at all, just like non-member spouses. But this seems really odd for youth.

Any thoughts? Next course of action? Possible root causes?

I'm familiar with the Handbook instructions for how to handle missing ordinances, so I'm ready to pursue that course, as needed.
Gary_Miller
Senior Member
Posts: 1222
Joined: Thu Dec 08, 2011 10:42 am
Location: Emmett, Idaho

Re: Troubleshooting unrecorded Baptism and Confirmation

#2

Post by Gary_Miller »

sgcurtis wrote:I am working with a ward in our stake with some membership records issues, specifically around youth who are not showing up as members. As an example, a 14-year-old daughter appears to have a membership record in MLS, but you won't find it in the list of individual members. The only way to find the record is to go to a parent's record and pull up the children. There is no baptism/confirmation date, and the young woman does not appear on the Bishop's Action and Interview List (which is why this didn't show up during the membership audit).
You have no membership record for this individual in your ward. You need to request the record, you can do this by using the information on the parents record.
sgcurtis wrote:Any thoughts on what the root cause might be?

It could be that these youth come from convert families and were to young to be baptized when the family joined the church. The record number you see on the parents record may not be a true membership record number but a non-member number so they could be added to the parents record as children. You will know this when you request the record if there is a member record you will get a record if its not you will get a message from HQ stating so.

When there is young children on convert baptism a record is not created by the mission. The receiving ward needs to create a member of record for these younger children. when a child is given a name and a blessing then a member of record is created. Children of converts don't normally have a name and blessing so no record get created.
sgcurtis wrote:At first I thought they were "recording" baptisms by only filling out the certificate, but in that instance the individuals would still show up on the action and interview list.
My guess would be that instead of recording the baptism the clerk just made a certificate by filling in the information instead of pulling it from the membership records. If this is the case and you have no record the individuals would not show up on the action and interview list.
sgcurtis wrote:The only other item I can think of is that when they requested the household into the ward, they did so individual by individual and left off one. But this has occurred with at least 4 different records in 4 different households in the ward, so I'm not expecting that to be the cause.
It could be but not likely.
sgcurtis wrote:Additionally, I checked the MLS export, and those individuals aren't exported at all, just like non-member spouses. But this seems really odd for youth.
Not if they are younger children of converts and the primary does not catch that the children are not showing up on their rolls.
sgcurtis wrote:Any thoughts? Next course of action? Possible root causes?
Request a record using the information on the parents record. If you receive a record make sure the baptism is recorded. If its not record the baptism using the information off of the certificate or baptism recommend form. If you don't receive a record (you will get a message through MLS if there is no record) then you will need to create one.
User avatar
aebrown
Community Administrator
Posts: 15153
Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2007 8:48 pm
Location: Draper, Utah

Re: Troubleshooting unrecorded Baptism and Confirmation

#3

Post by aebrown »

sgcurtis wrote:a 14-year-old daughter appears to have a membership record in MLS, but you won't find it in the list of individual members. The only way to find the record is to go to a parent's record and pull up the children. There is no baptism/confirmation date, and the young woman does not appear on the Bishop's Action and Interview List (which is why this didn't show up during the membership audit).
Gary_Miller is correct that this clearly shows that your ward doesn't have the membership record for this young woman. But it may be that no record was ever created. One piece of information you didn't mention is whether a membership record number was listed for that child on the parents' records. If there is no membership record number, then it's almost certain that no record was ever created.

You also didn't mention whether the family (or anyone else) claims that this young woman was actually baptized. You'd need to determine that before you decide whether to treat this as an ordinance that was not properly recorded, or a potential convert baptism.
sgcurtis
New Member
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun Feb 06, 2011 2:18 pm

Re: Troubleshooting unrecorded Baptism and Confirmation

#4

Post by sgcurtis »

I've since confirmed with SLC that these are linked records. Interestingly, they aren't convert baptisms, but I've got some more direction when I go to meet with the ward.

All individuals been reported by the members as baptized.
russellhltn
Community Administrator
Posts: 34384
Joined: Sat Jan 20, 2007 2:53 pm
Location: U.S.

Re: Troubleshooting unrecorded Baptism and Confirmation

#5

Post by russellhltn »

sgcurtis wrote:I've since confirmed with SLC that these are linked records. Interestingly, they aren't convert baptisms, but I've got some more direction when I go to meet with the ward.
A couple of things to consider:

Convert baptisms are recorded by the mission. Only the baptism of 8 year old members of record are recorded by the ward. Perhaps a clerk didn't understand their responsibility and failed to record it.

The second is that I've seen a few instances of clerks getting confused between "Household view" and "Individual view" in MLS. They seem to think that just because they can see the child on the parent's individual record, that the membership record is in the ward. They don't always "get" the difference between genealogy and household grouping. Those of us who learned in paper records know it. I don't think MIS had "genealogy". But those who have only known MLS see two views that superficially seem the same. (That is, both list children.) Unless they understand the difference, they will be confused.
Have you searched the Help Center? Try doing a Google search and adding "site:churchofjesuschrist.org/help" to the search criteria.

So we can better help you, please edit your Profile to include your general location.
Post Reply

Return to “Membership Help”