Members who moved...records coming back

[bsummie]

We have moved a lot of member's records out if our ward. Most of them have given us addresses of their new house that we include when we move them out. Lately we have had their records sent back to our ward. Many times we have thrown away their new address after sending them out. Does anyone know why their records would be sent back to their prior ward? In some of our cases they were moved close to a year ago and once again had addresses to send them to.
Thanks!

[jdlessley]

Does anyone know why their records would be sent back to their prior ward?

One reason records may return to their previous ward would be the ward to which their records were initially sent ended up sending the records out from that ward as "address unknown". Church headquarters then sends them to the last known address, which would be in the previous ward.

The question would then be why was a record sent to "address unknown" by the ward in which their new address was in? There are a number of reasons. My first impression would be that the new ward could not find the member after receiving the record. After searching for the member and not finding the member they then send the record to "address unknown".

[russellhltn]

Church headquarters then sends them to the last known address, which would be in the previous ward.

I don't know about that. They're likely to do some research or contact any known relatives. But the process could end up pointing to the prior address.

[jdlessley]

Church headquarters then sends them to the last known address, which would be in the previous ward.

I don't know about that.

I did not go into the details of what happens at headquarters. In the interest of brevity I jumped to the end. There are other threads discussing the process.

[bsummie]

Church headquarters then sends them to the last known address, which would be in the previous ward.

I don't know about that.

I did not go into the details of what happens at headquarters. In the interest of brevity I jumped to the end. There are other threads discussing the process.

What do you recommend the next step to be (how does this cycle end)? Do we send them back to the unknown file and then they send it to the prior unit before us? As explained some moved out over a year ago. I know there was recent letter sent out about checking social media and other steps, but after all else fails send it to the unknown file?
Thanks

[russellhltn]

What do you recommend the next step to be (how does this cycle end)? Do we send them back to the unknown file and then they send it to the prior unit before us? As explained some moved out over a year ago. I know there was recent letter sent out about checking social media and other steps, but after all else fails send it to the unknown file?

Yes, after all else fails, send to to "unknown". You might want to attache a message saying "do not return".