Children of Record

Parents requested the removal of their names from the Church records. Three children under the age of 18 and BIC but not baptized remain on the membership roles. Since these are "Children of Record" should their names have been removed also?

lblair wrote:Parents requested the removal of their names from the Church records. Three children under the age of 18 and BIC but not baptized remain on the membership roles. Since these are "Children of Record" should their names have been removed also?

There is nothing on the Report of Administrative Action form that mentions minor children. I don't have access to the Handbook right now to see if it mentions this case explicitly.

It seems logical to me that children would not be automatically removed with their parents; it's conceivable (although admittedly unlikely) that parents would want to be removed but that their children (particularly older teenagers) might be given permission to remain in the Church.

In my opinion, those handling the name removal should be sensitive to the fact that minor children of record exist, and discuss the issue with the parents so that an explicit decision is made. Separate forms would have to be submitted for each member. Clearly the legal guardians of minor children have the right to request removal for those children, but it should be requested explicitly, not assumed. I would recommend that you review the letter sent by the parents requesting removal to see if it mentioned the whole family or just the parents.

Thank you for your response; it's wise counsel.

lblair wrote:Parents requested the removal of their names from the Church records. Three children under the age of 18 and BIC but not baptized remain on the membership roles. Since these are "Children of Record" should their names have been removed also?

Read p. 149 of the Handbook of Instructions. As Alan mentioned, children are not automatically removed when the parents request name removals.

llblair,

Get with your Stake Clerk. He can help resolve this. It may be a simple oversight when the forms were submitted.

If not, the parents may not have been the legal guardians and therefore could not make that request.

A mother asked to have her name and her childrens' names removed from the church records. The children are older than 8 years old and were blessed but not baptized. The mother's name was removed from the records but the children were not because my stake president thought that the children would disappear with their parents records as they were not baptized. However, now I have 2 children in the ward and I need to remove their names per their mothers explicit request.

There is no way that I can wait until they are 18 years old to cancel their records.

Am I right that we now have to go through the name removal process again for this ex-members children?

Quoting the Handbook here (pg 149):

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And since the parent seems to want it done yesterday, you can probably have the Stake President skip the 30 day waiting period.

I'd suggest consulting the Church Handbook of Instruction on the page mentioned above. It outlines the procedure/requirements for removing the names of a minor.