Priesthood Ordinances not recorded

We recently had a member move into our ward that says his High priesthood ordination from 2 years ago has never been recorded, and his son's Deacon ordination isn't recorded which happened a year ago. I'm trying to figure out what I need to record it. I told him I would contact previous bishop/clerk and try to get confirmation from them. He says he lived in a ward that changed often and the bishop/clerk have both changed. I have reached out to the current ones to see if they can get me any info.

If I don't find out anything, do I just try to get 2 witnesses that say it happened? With his son, i'm sure our bishop could re inteview and re ordain without much of an issue. Although the High Priest ordination seems a little more complicated.

Handbook 1, Section 16.1.10 contains the specific instructions for recording an ordination after the fact, including details on what witnesses need to be able to attest to, if that option is chosen.

I have a variation of this issue... I have a case where an individual was advanced from Priest to Elder in their Ward, just before moving to a new ward.

I received paperwork via the assigned High Councilman documenting the actual ordination after the individual's record had moved from our Stake to his new one. My question is whether I should take any further action to try to provide records of the ordination to his new ward, or similar...

In the case of a Mech Priesthood ordination, although 16.1.3 says it is a Ward responsibility, the ordination can be recorded either at the Ward level or at the Stake level, right? It is possible the ordination was recorded by his Ward before sending his record along, but I have no way of knowing whether this occurred, or not.

Should I attempt to take any action to ensure this ordination was recorded for the individual? Or assume/hope the ordination was recorded by the Ward and leave it to the individual to request record of the ordination from us if/when they find it was not recorded (if it was not)?

Shawn
(fairly new) Stake Clerk

bluefish wrote:In the case of a Mech Priesthood ordination, although 16.1.3 says it is a Ward responsibility, the ordination can be recorded either at the Ward level or at the Stake level, right?

Yes, the MP ordination can be recorded at either the ward or stake level, but in my opinion each stake should make a firm decision as to which level will record the MP ordinations. Otherwise you run the risk of duplicate work, or even worse, having an ordination fail to be recorded. In our stake we decided to record all MP ordinations at the stake level, and it has worked very well for us.

bluefish wrote:It is possible the ordination was recorded by his Ward before sending his record along, but I have no way of knowing whether this occurred, or not.

Well, you could ask the ward clerk if he recorded it.

bluefish wrote:Should I attempt to take any action to ensure this ordination was recorded for the individual? Or assume/hope the ordination was recorded by the Ward and leave it to the individual to request record of the ordination from us if/when they find it was not recorded (if it was not)?

I would never assume or hope on something this important. If I were in your situation, I would talk to the ward clerk. If he did not record it, then you need to provide documentation (including all the details needed to record the ordination) to either the young man, his family, or the stake clerk of the family's new stake (you can find his contact information in CDOL).

aebrown wrote:I would never assume or hope on something this important. If I were in your situation, I would talk to the ward clerk. If he did not record it, then you need to provide documentation (including all the details needed to record the ordination) to either the young man, his family, or the stake clerk of the family's new stake (you can find his contact information in CDOL).

I would suggest that in addition to that, and even if the clerk did record the ordinance, you should also print the ordination certificate, have the appropriate people sign it and give/send it to the young man. Since the ordination occurred under the authority of your stake president he should sign the certificate (not his new stake president). And according to the handbook the certificate is sufficient evidence for another unit to record the ordination if needed. That way the young man has both the necessary information and proof in case the new stake/ward doesn't follow through or has questions.

In my YSA ward, we recently had a young man move in who had just been ordained an elder, but our ward clerk requested the membership record before his ordination was entered, so his records came in showing he was a priest.

To enter the information, the other ward simply requested his records back, added the ordination, then resent the records to our ward. That seems to me the simplest option.

dwsmith2 wrote:To enter the information, the other ward simply requested his records back, added the ordination, then resent the records to our ward. That seems to me the simplest option.

That's the simplest option if the new ward hasn't already recorded a calling and home teachers and home teaching assignments. But if they've already made those assignments they would be lost when the records are moved out and back. So this shouldn't be done without consulting with the new ward first.

I ran into this recently. My solution was to contact the clerk of the stake he lived in when he was ordained and ask him to forward the information so that I could record the ordination.

How does that affect printing the certificate? The certificate will need to be completed by the original stake president/clerk.

dwsmith2 wrote:How does that affect printing the certificate? The certificate will need to be completed by the original stake president/clerk.

You don't have to record the ordinance in order to print a certificate. You don't even need the record if you have the necessary information. You can print the certificate by itself and just fill in the information it needs. So the old stake can do it still. To me it feels right to have the certificate signed by the authority who oversaw the ordinance. But I don't know of any policy that explicitly says the new stake president can't sign it (although I don't know how the new stake can get the signature of the representative who was at the ordinance without the assistance of the old stake).

The old stake will be printing the certificate and I will pick it up from the clerk once it is signed. Fortunately, they are close enough to make that easy.