Mystery Members

When Church Headquarters sends member's records to the units without a local address or telephone number, how do they know that the member resides in that unit's boundaries?

One way is when the member says they are moving to a particular locality, the prior ward sends them to that unit. For example, "I'm moving to Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and will be in the Bartlesville First Ward, but I don't have an address yet. We will give our address to the new ward's clerk after we get there."

In this example, it is a matter of trusting what the member says.

jbh001, that's a definte culprit.

lblair, I have also experienced where a member is part of the singles ward. They lose track of his address and leave the address blank. They they are too old for the singles ward they move them into my ward using the boundary realignment feature and presto......I have to try to find them with only their name and birtdate to go with.

See my post about how to find people. It will help you locate them.

Hope this helps!

Enriquer, I appreciate your suggestions. I tried your post for finding people without success. The links to Free411 and ZabaSearch resulted in messages saying: "URL not found on this server."

enriquer wrote:jbh001, that's a definte culprit.

lblair, I have also experienced where a member is part of the singles ward. They lose track of his address and leave the address blank. They they are too old for the singles ward they move them into my ward using the boundary realignment feature and presto......I have to try to find them with only their name and birtdate to go with.

See my post about how to find people. It will help you locate them.

Hope this helps!

I have been having fits with the post text editor.

I'll see if I can fix it.

Here's the URLs:
www.zabasearch.com
www.free411.com

Hope this is helpful.

lblair wrote:The links to Free411 and ZabaSearch resulted in messages saying: "URL not found on this server."

You can just type zabasearch.com or free411.com in your browser, or for around 30 other free people search engines, you can try THIS link.

Good hunting!

jbh001 wrote:For example, "I'm moving to Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and will be in the Bartlesville First Ward, but I don't have an address yet."

Or .....

The member says "I'm moving to Bartlesville, Oklahoma". The clerk looks and sees a "Bartlesville, Oklahoma" ward and sends the records there.

You might want to check the member's records and see if they have a relative living in the ward. When I got those kinds of records, I'd make an effort, but if nothing turned up, I'd send them off to "Address Unknown".

What's making it ugly is that the member may not get a traditional phone when the move into the area. That really limits the ways you can find them. I suppose you could look up the prior ward, look up the Bishop and then call him to find out what's going on.

enriquer wrote:I have also experienced where a member is part of the singles ward. They lose track of his address and leave the address blank. They they are too old for the singles ward they move them into my ward using the boundary realignment feature and presto......I have to try to find them with only their name and birtdate to go with.

I think the same thing will happen if the singles ward (in your example) does a traditional move but since the address info is current, they don't fill it in. They don't realize that what they have won't transfer.

Boundary realignment will preserve existing address information. Normal moves won't.

I tried a number of people search engines without any success so I've done what you suggested.

I have written to the bishops/branch presidents of the member's previous wards and enclosed a copy of their membership records. I'm hoping that someone in the former ward is either corresponding with or knows the whereabouts of the mystery member. I haven't heard back yet so I don't know if I've had any success.

Thanks for your help.

RussellHltn wrote:Or .....

The member says "I'm moving to Bartlesville, Oklahoma". The clerk looks and sees a "Bartlesville, Oklahoma" ward and sends the records there.

You might want to check the member's records and see if they have a relative living in the ward. When I got those kinds of records, I'd make an effort, but if nothing turned up, I'd send them off to "Address Unknown".

What's making it ugly is that the member may not get a traditional phone when the move into the area. That really limits the ways you can find them. I suppose you could look up the prior ward, look up the Bishop and then call him to find out what's going on.

lblair wrote:When Church Headquarters sends member's records to the units without a local address or telephone number, how do they know that the member resides in that unit's boundaries?

Another way is if the record came from the unknown records department. They probably spoke with a relative who may have told them the member lived in your unit, but they may not have known the exact address.

Try the following link for U.S. searches. It has a state-by-state and county-by-county listing of public record information. Some states are better than others and some counties are better than others but it has been very helpful.

http://www.crimcheck.com/freerecords.htm

For deceased lost sheep , try:
http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi
and
http://www.worldvitalrecords.com/indexi ... ECSSDITEXT

(The first is the better of the two but it still is missing some names)

gshosford wrote:Try the following link for U.S. searches.

This was a very old thread that you just reactivated, but thanks for the links. A much more complete list of possibilities is found in the wiki under Locating Members. I did add to the article your first link, which was not there before.

One way to test search capabilities is to let the engine search for your own name, and/or people you know well. This helps with understanding capacity and accuracy. I tested zabasearch and it found me, my address, and phone number, but my birth year is off by one. I'm bookmarking this for future use, if I can remember to look for the bookmark.