Receiving membership records not in our units

In the past few weeks one of our wards has received several membership records for members living outside our stake boundries. I called the membership and boundaries support group today and they asked me if the boundaries of our wards and stakes are correct. I checked them in the maps in LDS.org and yes they are all correct. They said that if our boundaries are correct that these membership records do not originate at church headquarters, but are being sent to the wrong unit by the ward they are leaving. Several of them belong in the stake just to the South of our stake.

When a ward clerk moves a membership record from his ward to a new ward, that record goes through church headquarters, doesn't it, before being sent on the the new ward? Is it true that church headquarters doesn't check the new address with the new ward? I was told that we needed to look up the correct ward on LDS.org and then forward the membership to that ward. Seems like there needs to be some kind of check at headquarters when the new membership record is created to be sure it is going to the correct ward, based on the new address. Am I missing something here?

I'm a stake executive secretary. Thanks for help on understanding this.

veehb wrote:I was told that we needed to look up the correct ward on LDS.org and then forward the membership to that ward.

No, you don't. There's absolutely no requirement to provide the new unit in most move-outs. In fact, that's probably the source of the problem. In most cases you only need the new address. Let CHQ figure out the unit. The problem comes when the old unit decides to be "helpful" but uses wrong or outdated information.

If you put the new unit on the move-out request, CHQ will assume you know what you're doing and will follow that direction - regardless of how wrong the address might be.

But, since you're on the receiving end, there's not much you can do other then look for a pattern to see if there's someone you need to teach "correct principles" to.

Now, there are times when providing the unit would be a very good idea - such as when you're sending them to a singles or language ward. Failing to do that will cause their record to end up in the family ward for that area.

Thanks for the clarification. We will instruct our ward clerks to only send the new address when moving a membership out of the ward and not try to find the new ward. I can see how this can really cause problems (like it did for one of our wards with wrong incoming membership records). Good point on moving to singles wards, etc. where it is necessary to put the new unit number on the request. It makes sense to notate that when it applies.

Thanks again for the information.

I am the Membership Clerk in our Ward and I live over 30 miles from the Ward House. I need to be able to do my job from home. I have not been able to move member records. I am using Clerk Resources under LDS.ORG. I can update and change member records, but can't find a way to move a record without driving into the church and use MLS. We only have one computer and everyone in the ward leadership wants to use the computer so I really need to be able to do my work from home.

jacknclegg wrote:I have not been able to move member records. I am using Clerk Resources under LDS.ORG. I can update and change member records, but can't find a way to move a record without driving into the church and use MLS.

As I understand it, that capability is under development, so you should have your wish granted soon (but I have no way to clarify what "soon" means).

The ability to move records out is available under the beta version of Clerk Resources. The option to try the beta version has been made available to us Clerks, in the UK at least, for the last few weeks. I thought the beta test had been opened up to everyone, but I could be mistaken on that!

Check to see if there is a pale blue banner on the Clerk Resources home page, follow the instructions and with the necessary permissions from the Bishop and Stake President, accept the terms & conditions, and away you go!

russellhltn wrote:

veehb wrote:I was told that we needed to look up the correct ward on LDS.org and then forward the membership to that ward.

No, you don't. There's absolutely no requirement to provide the new unit in most move-outs. In fact, that's probably the source of the problem. In most cases you only need the new address. Let CHQ figure out the unit. The problem comes when the old unit decides to be "helpful" but uses wrong or outdated information.

If you put the new unit on the move-out request, CHQ will assume you know what you're doing and will follow that direction - regardless of how wrong the address might be.

But, since you're on the receiving end, there's not much you can do other then look for a pattern to see if there's someone you need to teach "correct principles" to.

Now, there are times when providing the unit would be a very good idea - such as when you're sending them to a singles or language ward. Failing to do that will cause their record to end up in the family ward for that area.

When I move records I look in the 'Meetinghouse Locator' link on LDS.org to see what ward a particular address is in, and then move it to that ward accordingly. I assumed that's the same system that CHQ uses to determine where to send a record, and is up to date. Is that wrong?

jasonfitt wrote:When I move records I look in the 'Meetinghouse Locator' link on LDS.org to see what ward a particular address is in, and then move it to that ward accordingly. I assumed that's the same system that CHQ uses to determine where to send a record, and is up to date. Is that wrong?

It's not necessarily wrong, but in most cases it's unnecessary, and in some cases it could be wrong.

As RussellHltn explained, specifying the ward doesn't really help if you're moving records to a regular ward -- if you don't supply an address, the Church will simply move the records to the correct ward based on the address anyway. If you make a mistake in which ward you specify, you'll force the records to go to the ward you specified, regardless of the address.

I think it's best to leave the destination ward blank, except in cases where you are moving records to a student, language-specific, or some other ward other than the default residential ward for the destination address.

aebrown wrote:If you make a mistake in which ward you specify, you'll force the records to go to the ward you specified, regardless of the address.

I think it's best to leave the destination ward blank, except in cases where you are moving records to a student, language-specific, or some other ward other than the default residential ward for the destination address.

We experienced this from wards in our own stake after a boundary change. They kept throwing members into our ward instead of the other ward (main boundary went from N-S to E-W so about 50% of the addresses changed wards). They thought they were helping, but made things worse. My advise is always, "the Church is very smart about getting records in the correct ward - allow their process to work because the clerk of the losing ward often does not know about changes in what they think is the gaining ward." Things are better with the LDS Maps function now, but still...

Other than a nuisance, this can cause a problem if the sending ward flags the record for the bishop to contact the prior bishop. Since the member really is not in the ward that receives the record, it would be inapproprate for that Bishop to have that discussion with the prior bishop and also adds a level of complexity to communication the private information to the actual ward. If the clerk then forwards the record to the correct ward, there is no way to "forward" the "contact prior bishop" flag to refer to the original ward.

You can't simply move records to a different ward if you don't have the address. I tried that and had to go to Bishops approval. If you have the address it will be much easier. However if you don't have the address than it won't move until you go down checklist. Even than may not get records out. Calling someone and requesting records makes job a lot easier, As is changing address and number of people that move within ward boundaries. Moving people out should happen soon I think.

I doubt we will ever be able to record events from home. Maybe can edit things like households.

Spencerwbingham wrote:You can't simply move records to a different ward if you don't have the address. I tried that and had to go to Bishops approval. If you have the address it will be much easier. However if you don't have the address than it won't move until you go down checklist. Even than may not get records out. Calling someone and requesting records makes job a lot easier, As is changing address and number of people that move within ward boundaries. Moving people out should happen soon I think.

I doubt we will ever be able to record events from home. Maybe can edit things like households.

In my comments, I was referring to a move where the clerk has the new address and also selects the ward to put the records into. If one does that, the record will move into the stated ward regardless of whether or not the address is actually within that ward's boundaries.

If one is trying to move a record without an actual address, we are talking about an entirely different subject. That said, we had cases where the sending clerk put our city in the street address field (along with the city and state in their fields) to force the record into our ward, though I could never figure out what sense that made. Since there was no phone number and no street address, there was no way for us to find them if they never came to church (and they never did).

davesudweeks wrote:Since there was no phone number and no street address, there was no way for us to find them if they never came to church (and they never did).

I'd still perform the usual steps to attempt to locate them before sending it to "Address Unknown".

Spencerwbingham wrote:I doubt we will ever be able to record events from home. Maybe can edit things like households.

Actually the recent bata test of more capabilities in Clerk Resources had this capability. Its my understanding that the church is working on putting all the capabilities of MLS online.

Spencerwbingham wrote:You can't simply move records to a different ward if you don't have the address. I tried that and had to go to Bishops approval.

Why would you want to do this at all. Moving a record to another ward without any contact information is only sending a problem to that ward. A ward can't contact someone if there is no contact information. Its much better to move it to the unknown file at CHQ where there are personal who have access to other information that enables them to possibly move the record to the correct ward. Just received a record today that had been at CHQ since 2008, the funny thing about this was the record had last been in a ward in our Stake, the grandmother and daughter (living with Grandma) are members of our ward.

Gary_Miller wrote:Moving a record to another ward without any contact information is only sending a problem to that ward.

Generally, I'd agree. But there might be exceptions. If the ward sending knows the person is attending a college, they might send the records to the unit that covers that school. (Assuming this isn't BYU.) They might be able to contact someone with the school in person and find the member that way.

aebrown wrote:I think it's best to leave the destination ward blank, except in cases where you are moving records to a student, language-specific, or some other ward other than the default residential ward for the destination address.

I just noticed that they have now added the capability to move records out on LDS.org. I just tried it on a member who wanted to be moved to the local YSA Ward, and after I entered the address a drop down menu appeared with a list of units to choose from to move his records in to. If the website isn't using the most current data, as was suggested, then clerks might see more and more mystery move-ins that aren't in their ward boundaries. I'm curious to know what it does if you don't select a unit, and if it will let you continue.