Marriage information incorrectly recorded, need to combine 2 households into 1

[tstock7]

Our ward's records contain an error involving a member who is married to another member in our ward. Unfortunately, somehow when their marriage was recorded, they were entered as 2 separate households (each as Head of Household) with the spouse listed as a non-member. So currently, both husband and wife have each other listed as Non-Member spouses on their respective membership records. However, that should not be the case- they are married and both are members.

I have placed the wife into the husband's household, but MLS and LCR are not allowing me to change their marriage status as being married to each other without first terminating the current marriage listed (with the incorrect non-member designation). I have the correct marriage information and can enter that instead, so my plan is to terminate both incorrect marriages and then enter in the correct information with the member spouses linked to each other this time. However, prior to terminating these marriages, I wanted to get people's thoughts and make sure I'm headed on the right track to correct this error.

I'm also wondering, when/if I terminate these incorrectly entered marriages 1) what should I enter as the Termination Reason (Unknown, Death, Divorce, Annulment) and 2) what date should I list as the Termination Date of the marriage.

Thanks in advance, any advice would be very helpful.

[russellhltn]

I think I'd contact Local Unit Support, perhaps by using the "special request" function to have CHQ fix it.

[eblood66]

I'm not sure what affect terminating the marriages might have on any marriage history that may be maintained on the record (for genealogical purposes). I would recommend contacting Local Unit Support and asking them to correctly link the membership records without terminating the marriage(s).