Need to fix members records!!!

Hi Team,
I need your help with this one. A new family moved into our branch. This is a sister that was a widow and has since remarried. They are not sealed in the Temple yet. I pulled the records from their last ward. She still came as a widow, her deceased husband still shows up as current husband and her children as part of her household. Her new husband is a new member of the church came as a separate house hold, The record of his wife shows the same sister except the middle name is missing and comes up as a non-member, so there's no member number for her. I've been poking around but not really sure what to do here. Thanks for your help in advance.

It sounds like you need to correctly enter the marriage information on both records. On the wife's record, go to the Current Spouse tab, click on Edit and enter the complete details for her new husband. Then go to the husband's record and correct the information (including the correct full name, the correct birth date, the correct membership status and the correct membership number).

Then you should go to the household record of the husband and add his wife and each of the children to his household using the Add Member link on the right hand side of the screen.

Then do a send and receive to send it all to CHQ. That should fix things up.

eblood66 wrote:It sounds like you need to correctly enter the marriage information on both records. On the wife's record, go to the Current Spouse tab, click on Edit and enter the complete details for her new husband. Then go to the husband's record and correct the information (including the correct full name, the correct birth date, the correct membership status and the correct membership number).

Before you do that, you need to make sure that the deceased husband is properly dealt with. From the original post, it wasn't entirely clear whether his record came along with the family (or even if he was a member). If his record did come with the family, then you need to make sure that his death is properly recorded (using "Death of Member" under "Membership" > "View and Update").

If his record did not come (or if he as not a member), then it might be good to terminate her marriage to him. This is done via Membership > Record Ordinances > Terminate Marriage.

Finally, I would personally choose the path of recording the new marriage, rather than just editing the existing marriage information. Either way should work, but I would only edit marriage information when I'm correcting something about the current marriage, not creating a new marriage. I would do that by choosing Membership > Record Ordinances > Record Civil Marriage.

Thank you both very much for the helpful information, I will go to church tomorrow and work on this. The deceased husband shows only under marriage for her and comes up as deceased. But I don't have see him under membership or have a record number for him. Maybe just a temporary record. I will check on MLS tomorrow. Thank you very much.

cguzman wrote:She still came as a widow, her deceased husband still shows up as current husband

Ok, I'm confused. You say she "came as a widow" but "her deceased husband still shows up as current husband"

Taken at face value, that suggests that she is sealed to her prior husband. And that will continue until her sealing is canceled. (Which involves more than just MLS.) As long as her status is single, then you don't have to change anything with respect to her prior husband.

eblood66 wrote:It sounds like you need to correctly enter the marriage information on both records.

I would expect that once one record is updated, it appears on both. Maybe not immediately, but after it's been processed by CHQ. So I think it only needs to be recorded once.

Once the marriage is recorded, then you can place her into his household and she will appear as "spouse" and not "other".

russellhltn wrote:

cguzman wrote:She still came as a widow, her deceased husband still shows up as current husband

Ok, I'm confused. You say she "came as a widow" but "her deceased husband still shows up as current husband"

What he says makes sense. If a marriage (civil or temple) is terminated due to death the deceased spouse continues to show as the current spouse in MLS but there is no marriage information and there is a note at the bottom of the screen that indicates the spouse is deceased.

russellhltn wrote:

eblood66 wrote:It sounds like you need to correctly enter the marriage information on both records.

I would expect that once one record is updated, it appears on both. Maybe not immediately, but after it's been processed by CHQ. So I think it only needs to be recorded once.

Possibly but I would recorded it on both records to make sure especially since one record doesn't have the right information. I'm not sure what happens if there is a conflict but if they are the same then there should be no problem.

russellhltn wrote:Once the marriage is recorded, then you can place her into his household and she will appear as "spouse" and not "other".

Yes, that's why I had that step last. And if you record the marriage on both records then you don't have to wait until anything comes back from CHQ for that to work right.

aebrown wrote:Finally, I would personally choose the path of recording the new marriage, rather than just editing the existing marriage information. Either way should work, but I would only edit marriage information when I'm correcting something about the current marriage, not creating a new marriage. I would do that by choosing Membership > Record Ordinances > Record Civil Marriage.

I don't think that will work. The original poster indicated that the husband already had the marriage recorded (except that the sisters name was incomplete and she was marked as a non-member. I don't think Record Civil Marriage will work unless both members have no current marriage recorded. When I tried it in the test installation it gave an error. Terminating the husbands marriage first doesn't seem like a good idea either since the marriage is valid but just not entered correctly.

eblood66 wrote:If a marriage (civil or temple) is terminated due to death the deceased spouse continues to show as the current spouse in MLS but there is no marriage information and there is a note at the bottom of the screen that indicates the spouse is deceased.

I believe that's correct for a temple marriage, but that doesn't sound right for a civil only.

russellhltn wrote:

eblood66 wrote:If a marriage (civil or temple) is terminated due to death the deceased spouse continues to show as the current spouse in MLS but there is no marriage information and there is a note at the bottom of the screen that indicates the spouse is deceased.

I believe that's correct for a temple marriage, but that doesn't sound right for a civil only.

Unless the test installation of MLS works different than the live version, it is the case for civil marriages as well.

eblood66 wrote:

aebrown wrote:Finally, I would personally choose the path of recording the new marriage, rather than just editing the existing marriage information. Either way should work, but I would only edit marriage information when I'm correcting something about the current marriage, not creating a new marriage. I would do that by choosing Membership > Record Ordinances > Record Civil Marriage.

I don't think that will work. The original poster indicated that the husband already had the marriage recorded (except that the sisters name was incomplete and she was marked as a non-member. I don't think Record Civil Marriage will work unless both members have no current marriage recorded. When I tried it in the test installation it gave an error. Terminating the husbands marriage first doesn't seem like a good idea either since the marriage is valid but just not entered correctly.

Record Civil Marriage worked just fine for me on the test installation, whether or not the person had a current spouse.

And I never suggested that the HUSBAND's marriage should be terminated first -- I only suggested that the WIFE's marriage should be terminated, since HER record has her married to her first husband, not to the second (current). I specifically said that the edit function should be used to correct a problem with an existing marriage, which would apply to the husband.

aebrown wrote:Record Civil Marriage worked just fine for me on the test installation, whether or not the person had a current spouse.

I just played with it again. I was trying to record the marriage by first selecting the wife (who did not have a marriage entered) and then selecting/entering the husband. At least for me that did not work on two levels. First, the husband is not available to select (presumably because he already has a marriage entered). Second, even if I enter all of the husband's information manually, it complains that the husband is already married and that I must first terminate that marriage.

However, I tried it the other way around and selected the husband first and then selected the wife it worked and overwrote the already entered information on the husbands record and added it to the wife's.

So, yes, Record Civil Marriage does work but with the caveat that it must be done from the side which already has the marriage incorrectly recorded.

aebrown wrote:And I never suggested that the HUSBAND's marriage should be terminated first -- I only suggested that the WIFE's marriage should be terminated, since HER record has her married to her first husband, not to the second (current). I specifically said that the edit function should be used to correct a problem with an existing marriage, which would apply to the husband.

No, I didn't mean to imply that you did suggest that. My comment was to say that I didn't think terminating the husbands marriage was a good way to get around the problem I was seeing with using the Record Civil Marriage option.

Hello, just wanted to say thank you very much. Sorry if I wasn't very clear in my first post or even after. New to the calling and still a little nervous around computer and specially records. I was able to fix it. Had to terminate both marriages, once that was done it was just a matter of registering their wedding with the correct information. The new household is now created and they are happy to be one in our records. Just to clarify her previous husband was not a member of the church, so there was no temple ordinance. Thanks for all your help!!!!!

Somebody got into mls and recorded a death, but the person is very much alive. Since I no longer have access to her records, how do I correct this error?

kaptken wrote:Somebody got into mls and recorded a death, but the person is very much alive. Since I no longer have access to her records, how do I correct this error?

I'd call Local Unit Support.

I'd also do an audit of the MLS users and privileges. At this point with HT/VT on the web and not in MLS, I'm not sure as quorums and auxiliaries need access to MLS any more. But even if they do, their logins should NOT have Edit Membership rights. In fact, I'd argue that no one other than the bishop, ward clerk and membership clerks should have Edit Membership rights.

kaptken wrote:Somebody got into mls and recorded a death, but the person is very much alive. Since I no longer have access to her records, how do I correct this error?

You'll need to contact LUS (Local Unit Support) and provide them sufficient information to identify the person (at least full name and birthdate, mrn if you have it) and let them know what happened. They should be able to make the correction and send the records back to your unit.

Thanks for your help. It will be nice for her to know that she is not dead.