U.S. Street Address to Assigned Local Unit processing

rontilby · #1

With some regularity, we receive membership records that belong to an adjacent unit. The boundaries are well understood by the local ward and stake leaders, and the Maps site on LDS.ORG shows accurate boundary lines.

Each time that I've sent a message via MLS about this, they respond as though I was trying to alter the boundary lines, which of course is not the case.

Given a valid United States Postal Service residential street address, how does Church Headquarters determine the correct Local Unit for a membership move?

I've read on this forum that the Church uses a Geographic Information System in some of its boundary work. Does that system come into play in membership record moves?

If I were to provide a list of street addresses that are consistently sent to the wrong local unit, along with the correct local unit, would CHQ be able to make use of it to correct their system(s)? Would I need to include GPS coordinates of each address?

If CHQ has a database of street addresses and their assigned unit, could local units get access to their portion to review and recommend corrections?

davesudweeks · #2

We have had this problem occasionally but in our case it seems to stem from over-zealous ward clerks and out-of-date boundary maps in their offices. If a Clerk were to enter an Address AND a ward to send the record to, it appears that the Ward information in the transmittal will override the ward the address actually resides in.

Are you sure that membership moves are being accomplished on address information only and that the wrong ward is not being inadvertantly entered?

williamjackson · #3

If I have a new address, I never move a record out without specifying which ward and stake to move it to. I use the tool at http://lds.org/maps to determine the ward and stake the new address belongs to. I always thought this was what I was supposed to do, and never considered myself to be over-zealous.

Are you saying that if I have the new address, I can skip looking up the new ward and stake and some automated system at Church Headquarters will take care of that for me?

rontilby: Have you tried looking up any of those addresses on http://lds.org/maps to see what ward that tool assigns them to?

russellhltn · #4

subtlecoolness wrote:Are you saying that if I have the new address, I can skip looking up the new ward and stake and some automated system at Church Headquarters will take care of that for me?

Yes. That's what we did "back in the day" before the 'net.

davesudweeks · #5

subtlecoolness wrote:If I have a new address, I never move a record out without specifying which ward and stake to move it to. I use the tool at http://lds.org/maps to determine the ward and stake the new address belongs to. I always thought this was what I was supposed to do, and never considered myself to be over-zealous.

Subtlecoolness, my sincere apologies for painting you with the "over-zealous" brush... We haven't had any instances of this since the LDS.org/maps function came into being. Our biggest culprits were other wards in our stake who used their paper boundary map (now several boundary changes out of date). The only time (in my mind) it is a *real* concern is if the member has a "Contact Prior Bishop" note attached. If we send the record on with the note, they will call our bishop who knows nothing about the member. If we don't, the note never is sent to the new bishop in the correct ward. Otherwise, we just move the record along with only the address and not the forced ward information.

#6

davesudweeks wrote:Our biggest culprits were other wards in our stake who used their paper boundary map (now several boundary changes out of date).

Then you might wish to ask the stake clerk to have those wards update their maps.

All you need to transfer a record is the new address. Software at CHQ will look up the new ward and stake from that information. I believe if you also enter a ward and stake, that information will override the address check, so your fellow ward clerks may be doing that inadvertently.

If an address is showing up in the wrong ward, the Church Boundaries Department needs to be made aware of the problem to that they can fix their database. This type of error is very rare, but not unheard of. As others have mentioned, you can use the tools at lds.org to see if something like this is the cause.

It sounds to me, however, as if your more than helpful clerks in the other wards are overriding the system with incorrect ward information.