Adoptive Parents MLS & New Family Search

Discussions around using and interfacing with the Church MLS program.
Daryl1
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Location: Central California

Adoptive Parents MLS & New Family Search

#1

Post by Daryl1 »

Does anyone know how and where to find the option in MLS to list the legal parents as either adoptive or biological? I have been told that MLS can list the legal parent as either adoptive or biological. All of the adoptive parents I have entered always show up as biological. Please Help.:confused: What am I doing wrong? how do I fix these errors? Anyone Please
Daryl1
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Location: Central California

#2

Post by Daryl1 »

Recording Living Adoptive Parents.
Need to be able to have an option in MLS for selecting parents as either adoptive or biological. The new family search draws this information from MLS.
russellhltn
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#3

Post by russellhltn »

It's debatable if that's a failing of MLS or of newFamilySearch. I don't see anyone in the ward having the "need to know" the distinction, so I personally suspect that is an issue with FamilySearch.
Have you searched the Help Center? Try doing a Google search and adding "site:churchofjesuschrist.org/help" to the search criteria.

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Daryl1
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Location: Central California

Not True

#4

Post by Daryl1 »

RussellHltn wrote:It's debatable if that's a failing of MLS or of newFamilySearch. I don't see anyone in the ward having the "need to know" the distinction, so I personally suspect that is an issue with FamilySearch.
The contributor of living Relationships to the New Family Search site is always LDS Church Membership Records. This is an issue with MLS. MLS currently asks for legal parents and always automatically assigns parent child relationship for adopted children as biological. :mad:

Over at the very good New Family Search site one can make relation corrections for the deceased as biological or adopted, stepchild etc... My big question is why not allow clerks to enter parent child relationships correctly the first time? :confused: Currently the living members will have to wait until the living parents and children are deceased before someone can correct the parent child relationship to adopted.

Parent child relationships can be corrected for the dead why not the living? I have many families in our unit that have adopted children. When they go to New Family Search all of there children show as biological and the contributor is LDS Church Membership Records. They are disgruntled and I have to work with them you do not. :mad:

These members wish to see correct information displayed from MLS to the New Family Search site. No one can correct it because MLS is the contributor.

FamilySearch cannot do anything because MLS is the contributor for the living. As a Clerk I have tried to correct this in MLS as requested from the adopted families for the last two years with no luck. :mad:

This is not a New Family Search issue!!! This is a LDS Church Membership Record MLS issue since MLS is the contributor for the living.

Go to document (1012437) found at help center family search site for Correcting Information Contributed by LDS Church Membership Records. It plainly says "If the system contains incorrect information about living individuals that is from Church membership records, ward and branch clerks must correct the Church membership record itself."

Since you stated that it is debatable that the failing is in MLS please give instructions how to correct this?
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aebrown
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#5

Post by aebrown »

Mr. Techno wrote:This is not a New Family Search issue!!! This is a LDS Church Membership Record MLS issue since MLS is the contributor for the living.

Go to document (1012437) found at help center family search site for Correcting Information Contributed by LDS Church Membership Records. It plainly says "If the system contains incorrect information about living individuals that is from Church membership records, ward and branch clerks must correct the Church membership record itself."
It's certainly the case that any corrections for most information in New FamilySearch regarding living members would have to come from MLS. For example, a spelling of a name, or a birthplace or date. So the document that talks about correcting information for living members is accurate.

However, the information about parent-child relationship types is not something that is currently in MLS. Why is that the case? It may well be that the Church membership database doesn't store that information. If that is the case, it's completely understandable why New FamilySearch doesn't receive that specific information for living members, and there's nothing that can be done in MLS about it until the membership database is updated to contain that information. Changing the membership database is no small task.

If by chance, the membership database contains a place to store that information, but it is just not accurate because MLS doesn't have a way to provide that information, then it should be fairly easy to update MLS to do so. Then thousands of records would have to be updated to show the correct parent relationship. But I really doubt that it would be that easy.
Mr. Techno wrote:Since you stated that it is debatable that the failing is in MLS please give instructions how to correct this?
The only way this could be corrected is for the membership database to be changed, and then MLS updated so that it can provide this information.
Questions that can benefit the larger community should be asked in a public forum, not a private message.
Daryl1
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Location: Central California

Easy Fix See Bold Section

#6

Post by Daryl1 »

I agree with paragraph one. That is a true statement.:)

Regarding paragraph two. The Membership Data base already collects and stores parent-child relationship type already as only biological. Children are recorded when they were born and who there parents are legal or biological. New Family Search receives this information currently from Church Membership Records.

Paragraph three is the issue. MLS just does not have a way to select Adopted. Membership Data base currently sends all family members and children to New Family Search and lists them as biological. This is only a living problem. The dead is no problem, the data can be corrected with ease.

Ok, easy fix would be to allow living parents to correct and edit the relationship over at New Family Search. Currently Members nor Clerks can make corrections because the contributor is LDS Church Membership Records. :rolleyes:

Who has the authority to make the easy fix happen. New Family Search, Membership Records, or First Presidency?

Can we bring this to someones attention for help soon?
Members have been patient for a few years now.

If not, I am not sure what to say to all of the families in our unit that have adopted children that are disgruntled.
idjeeper2
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#7

Post by idjeeper2 »

I'm struggling to understand the issue here. I have two adopted children. They are my kids, sealed to me and my sweetheart. The judge required me under oath to promise to treat them exactly the same as our other children.

When I go to New Family Search they show up in our family - I wouldn't want it any other way. To me, possibly because I am a genealogy novice, I just don't see the need to make the distinction about which of my kids are biological and which are adopted. Is there some reason that this is important that I don't get?

Not trying to be a smart aleck, I really would appreciate some education here.
Daryl1
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Location: Central California

Accurate Records Are Important

#8

Post by Daryl1 »

Yes. I agree. It is true when children are adopted and than families go to the Temple families become an eternal unit. :)

The families I am helping wish to see the records kept correctly. I am just the Clerk. The families are wishing this. For them this must be important for some reason.

What do you think happens when we are not around anymore say 5-10 generations pass away from now and someone see's photos of the families that have adopted children and or see children from other ethnics with place of birth in foreign countries and see biological listed?

If they see adopted then no problem and people are not left wondering if someone had another wife etc... When future generations see adopted and Temple Ordinance work, this is wonderful no questions or confusion will arise.

New Family Search has the ability to select relationships for the dead regarding parent child relationships stepchild, biological, adopted etc...

No issue here. Just important to keep accurate and correct records for the living also while we are on the Earth. This will help future generations of genealogy workers. The work can go faster with accurate records.

Records are important over the generations. Here is a small sample of record keeping.

3 Nephi 1:3
Alma 37:2
D & C 85:1
D & C 47:3
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aebrown
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#9

Post by aebrown »

Mr. Techno wrote:Regarding paragraph two. The Membership Data base already collects and stores parent-child relationship type already as only biological. Children are recorded when they were born and who there parents are legal or biological. New Family Search receives this information currently from Church Membership Records.
I'm curious what your source for this statement is. In MLS, when you add a New Child of Record or Record Child Blessing, there is no information about whether the child is adopted or biological. Therefore, I see no evidence that "Children are recorded when they were born and who there parents are legal or biological."

And if that relationship is not recorded when the membership record is created for a child that is added to a family, then I don't see how it can be in the membership database.

Every piece of evidence I have seems to indicate that the membership database has no information about whether a child is adopted or biological. A membership record has only one set of fields for recording "Father" and "Mother"; in fact, the MLS Help file says (under topic "Adoption Policy") that a clerk should "create a membership record for the child listing the adoptive parents as the parent, as shown on the adoption documents."

There are really only two possibilities for how New FamilySearch sets the parent link for living members:
  1. The membership database connection sets the relationship to "biological" because it has no more specific information.
  2. The membership database connection doesn't supply a relationship, and New FamilySearch assumes it is biological, because that's the best assumption given no specific information.
In either case, the effect on New FamilySearch will be the same, and a clerk will be unable to do anything about it until both the membership database and MLS are enhanced to store and update this information.
Mr. Techno wrote:Ok, easy fix would be to allow living parents to correct and edit the relationship over at New Family Search. Currently Members nor Clerks can make corrections because the contributor is LDS Church Membership Records. :rolleyes:

Who has the authority to make the easy fix happen. New Family Search, Membership Records, or First Presidency?
I'm not so sure that's easy to do. I can imagine all sorts of challenges in implementing that. But in any case, it would probably be primarily a change implemented by the Family History Department in the FamilySearch software, but would require approval from the appropriate priesthood leaders.
Questions that can benefit the larger community should be asked in a public forum, not a private message.
idjeeper2
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Location: Boise, Idaho, USA

#10

Post by idjeeper2 »

Mr. Techno wrote:What do you think happens when we are not around anymore say 5-10 generations pass away from now and someone see's photos of the families that have adopted children and or see children from other ethnics with place of birth in foreign countries and see biological listed?

If they see adopted then no problem and people are not left wondering if someone had another wife etc... When future generations see adopted and Temple Ordinance work, this is wonderful no questions or confusion will arise.
Okay, that makes some sense. Why not just add a note to the individual in New Family Search saying they were adopted and whatever other information one would want to include? That note will be there forever as well as who contributed the information. They could also add the event to the child's timeline. I believe they could even include a scan of the adoption decree in NFS. This ability to include details is one of the beauties of NFS and allows us to capture far more information than MLS could ever carry.

I just tried this with one of my kids - it works but only shows up if one reads the individual notes. The question in my mind was if NFS allows me to add a note to a living person - yes, I can.

So, I would respectfully suggest that you tell the families (very tactfully) to stop relying on MLS to do the work and start doing it themselves. It will work mo' betta'.
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