Adding an unblessed child to parents records

We are trying to add a 5 yr old child who was not blessed to his parents records. Parents are inactive. We do not know his birthdate. Do we create a non member record and then add him to his parents records?

britton1 wrote:We are trying to add a 5 yr old child who was not blessed to his parents records. Parents are inactive. We do not know his birthdate. Do we create a non member record and then add him to his parents records?

If the parents are willing to have a membership record created for the child you should have them fill out and sign a Child Blessing Record form. Even though the child was not blessed you still use this form to get the information needed to create the record and to get permission from the parents. Once you have that form you should just create a new record for the child using the Membership > Ordinances > New Child of Record menu option.

If the parents are not willing to fill out and sign the blessing form then the only thing you can do is add the child to the parents records. To do that open the parent's record, click on the Children tab (on the left), click on Add Child and then fill out the information. You need at least a year of birth and a name. You'll need to do this on both the mother's and father's records. The child will then show up on their Membership Record printouts but the child will not show up on in the ward directory printout or class rolls. That isn't possible to do without the permission of the parents.

Thank you. That really helps.

There are also two children over the age of 8. It asks to add a baptism date. Neither were baptized. How do we get them added so that the show up on our records as well as lds tools?

britton1 wrote:There are also two children over the age of 8. It asks to add a baptism date. Neither were baptized. How do we get them added so that the show up on our records as well as lds tools?

You can and should add them as children on their parents records as I previously described.

If they are already over 8 years old it isn't not possible to add permanent membership records for them unless and until they are baptized.

With the permission of the parents, you can add a temporary non-member record. Go to Membership > Records > Nonmember Record on the menu in MLS and enter the appropriate information. This should add them to the ward directory when printed from MLS. It should also be possible to add them to specific classes for rolls (although you have to add and remove them manually--they will not be automatically assigned based on age).

Unfortunately, there is no way to get them to show up in the lds.org directory or in LDS tools (other than for them to be baptized).

eblood66 wrote:If they are already over 8 years old it isn't not possible to add permanent membership records for them unless and until they are baptized.

Nit-pick: Child-of-record, not "permanent".

But you're correct. At this point, it's too late. They have to be baptized if they are to be seen as a family in the on-line directory or LDS Tools.

Ok, good to know. We were able to add one of their children and who is under 8 and get them to show up on LDS Tools but the other two (8 and 10) have been tricky. At least I know I have done all I can. Thanks.