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Priesthood Line of Authority

Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 1:39 am
by dennisbartholomew
I believe that a useful tool would be to have the ability for individuals to download and print their Priesthood line of authority from lds.org. This would allow the Priesthood holder to pass this information along to those whom he confers the Priesthood.

After normally signing in under 'Stake and Ward Websites' with his username and password, the user could click on a newly created button near the Admin button.

I presume that the Church has this information electronically. It is a matter of accessing this information and making it available to all who hold the Priesthood.

Thank you for considering this idea.

Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 5:35 am
by aebrown
dennis7400 wrote:I believe that a useful tool would be to have the ability for individuals to download and print their Priesthood line of authority from lds.org. This would allow the Priesthood holder to pass this information along to those whom he confers the Priesthood.
That would indeed make it more convenient to obtain a line of authority. In case you're not aware, it is already possible to make such a request, but it's a more manual process: you request a form, fill it out, send it in (these first three steps can be done electronically), and receive your line of authority in the mail. See Priesthood Line of Authority for the detail.

Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 11:24 am
by mfmohlma
dennis7400 wrote:I presume that the Church has this information electronically. It is a matter of accessing this information and making it available to all who hold the Priesthood.
It's just a hunch, but I think that this presumption is a bit much. The current process seems to indicate there is quite a bit of manual work involved.

Otherwise, it's a fabulous idea. :)

Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 12:58 pm
by lajackson
dennis7400 wrote:I presume that the Church has this information electronically.

Sadly, this is not totally true. I ran across a membership record just this past Sunday where the person performing the ordination was not recorded. Only the date was shown.

We were able to determine the information and get the record updated.

The first time I ordained someone, I prepared my line of authority in a word processed document. After each ordination, I add a line at the beginning of the document to show the name of the person and the date on which I ordained him. My line of authority follows. I print it out, sign it, and give it to the person I ordained.

Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2010 9:59 am
by MorettiDP
Of course, if our genealogical systems can be sucessfully used to perform genealogical research, we can adapt this system to allow the members to do his our PLA research if the data is unnavailable.

Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2010 3:41 pm
by greenwoodkl
If I remember right the Church sent out letters several years ago requesting information on PLA from individual Priesthood holders and added the fields in MLS to store such ordination information. I requested my PLA several years ago from CHQ and received what appeared to be a report of the PLA. So I may be wrong, but I assume that for some the PLA is electronically stored and yet for others there are gaps because the information was not collected yet. I would hope that someday such information is made available electronically to members directly.

Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2010 4:46 pm
by russellhltn
kgthunder wrote:If I remember right the Church sent out letters several years ago requesting information on PLA from individual Priesthood holders and added the fields in MLS to store such ordination information.
What was added was who ordained that particular person. The entire PLA was not entered.

So it would require someone to manually connect some parts of the chain together. (Since not all ordinations have record numbers associated with them.) I'm not sure how the membership records of the deceased were handled when the church computerized their records.

Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2010 6:53 pm
by jbh001
lajackson wrote:Sadly, this is not totally true. I ran across a membership record just this past Sunday where the person performing the ordination was not recorded. Only the date was shown.
I have had similar experiences. But I have also noticed some records like this, that later on were updated by CHQ with the name of the person performing the ordination without any MLS intervention on our part. This tells me that somewhere there is someone at CHQ entering information electronically to complete the lines.

Posted: Mon Jul 12, 2010 3:27 pm
by lajackson
jbh001 wrote:I have had similar experiences. But I have also noticed some records like this, that later on were updated by CHQ with the name of the person performing the ordination without any MLS intervention on our part. This tells me that somewhere there is someone at CHQ entering information electronically to complete the lines.

For the good part of the 1990s, the name of the person ordaining was not recorded. When a decision was made to try and recapture that information, clerks were asked to provide any information they could.

This information came from the members themselves, those who ordained them, others with knowledge, and even from old yellow forms and other records in clerks offices around the world.

Many of the names were located and added to the membership records. Some are still surfacing, such as the one I ran across that Sunday.

You are correct, though, that whenever CHQ finds the information, they will add it to the appropriate membership record. So, in your case, if someone else provided the input, the record would have been updated without any action on your part.

Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 9:33 am
by BellMR
So with the new LDS.org rolled out and a handy link to request a copy of your Patriarchal Blessing...is there anything on the radar to provide the same for PLA? Given the discussion in this thread, maybe there would be some incomplete lines, but some must be complete.