Members without an address...

What do I do with ward membership records that have no address and phone number? We have no way to make contact to verify membership within our ward boundaries. Do I send these records back with 'Unknown Address'?

I'd suggest following the guides as best you can under Locating Members. Don't feel that you have to do all the work yourself. There's Elders Quorums and Relief Society that should be lending a hand to find them as well.

However, if the records were moved into the ward with no information, I'd do a couple of Google searches, call Information for a phone number, quiz the Ward Council, and if unsuccessful, send them back to where they came from.

russellhltn wrote:However, if the records were moved into the ward with no information, I'd do a couple of Google searches, call Information for a phone number, quiz the Ward Council, and if unsuccessful, send them back to where they came from.

The 1 October 2013 letter titled "Additional Steps for Finding and Rescuing Lost Members" requires 8 specific steps to be followed before returning records to the Address Unknown file. I'd strongly recommend that you follow those steps. By "you" I mean the combined resources of the ward council and other ward leaders. Before MLS will let you send a record to the Address Unknown file you'll have to certify that you did those 8 steps and that the bishop approves sending the record back with no address.

If these records were just sent to your ward, I'd wait until the following Sunday to see if they show up at church.
In some areas, especially when dealing with Young Single Adults, you may find it useful to look for the person on Facebook. This is a valuable tool that I have used to locate and transfer records for members multiple times. If you're lucky, you may even have a mutual friend with the person who can get their address for you.

Some other techniques that may prove useful:

Some states have judicial case records available online:
http://www.judicial.state.sc.us/caseSearch/
This site provides links to the judicial records on a county-by-county basis. Very useful, especially for recent cases such as traffic violations, criminal arrests and Rule-to-Vacate matters.

Many county assessors' offices have web sites with a wealth of information for example Lexington County South Carolina: http://www.lex-co.com/PCSearch/TaxInfoP ... Search.asp

Some counties have a registry of deeds. Once again, Lexington County South Carolina:
http://www.lex-co.com/rod/public/viewer.aspx
One can search for documents such as deeds, leases, liens, bankruptcies, contracts of sales, death certificates, easements...
One can also search based on party type, such as: Debtor, defendant, grantee, grantor, mortgagee ...
Not every county in every state has such online resources, but if available, they can be very helpful, if not in locating the current address, documenting that the individual lived there many years ago, sold the property and relocated, etc. This is helpful when another unit transfers a record to your unit based on outdated information such as found on Zaba Search.

If your ward has a state prison within its boundaries, as our ward does, often the state has inmate records available online and one can determine the offense, the location where committed and return the record to the unit where the individual was living at the time of the offense for disciplinary action, as I recall that is according to Book I of the Handbook of Instructions.

If you learn or have reason to believe that the individual is in a county jail, many counties have online facilities that allow one to search for detainees.