NewFamilySearch Help Question

Now that our stake is up and running with NewFamilySearch, I signed on, began looking at my Ancestors and came to a screeching halt. My mothers records are all messed up. She was baptized at age 8 and received her endowments after her death. All this data shows in the IGI files when I look in the old Family Search records but it will not show up in NFS. I have worked with our stake Genological personnel who went to the help section and emailed me what steps I need to take to rectify the situation so the records show correctly. Thus my question -

I know several of you folks out there are pretty familiar with NFS and may even know some folks in the (support@family search.org) site. How long will it take for the support group to get to the issue and resolve it - anyone know? I can be patient as I know the data it out there but someone has "goobered" up the situation by trying to have the temple work done and it is messing up things - example (my mother's records show she was sealed to her parents on 12 Sep 2008 in the Monticello Temple, but the fact is she was BIC due to her parents being sealed in the Logan Temple prior to her birth).

Just wondering if anyone has gone through the support section and could give me a timeframe of when I could expect the situation to be resolved.

Thanks

Jim

If your mother was a LDS Chruch member and her original ordinance dates are not showing up in newFamilySearch (nFS), then it is possible that her membership record does not show a death date on it yet. You can check to see if her membership record is in the folder by going to the details view, then click on Combined Records. Look at each of the combined records and see if one is titled LDS Membership Record. If it is not in the folder, first check for duplicates, it might be in the nFS system but needs to be combined. If you do not find it there, email support through the help area and provide the information about your mother and provide them her death date, they can tell you what to do to get it corrected. Be sure to tell them that it is in the IGI but you can not find it in nFS and that she was a LDS Member.

My mother was a member - from birth. When I did what you suggested this is what I found (which I already knew). In the details block it shows:
Birth - LDS Church Temple Records
Baptism - I entered this because IGI did not transfer it across
Death - LDS Church Temple Records
Burial - LDS Church Temple Records

Thus I am assuming that the church temple records as well as her membership record would show her death. In IGI all that information is present - it just won't transfer to nFS. I have already sent this information to the support folks so my original question in starting this thread was - how long does it take for the support group to straighten the info out so it shows correctly in nFS. I sent the email to the support group Thursday 2 October. Just wondering how long it takes to show up correctly.

Thanks for the help but I am not sure what more I can do than wait.

Jim

They usually reply to your post quickly even if they don't have the problem corrected. If you don't get a reply within a week, I would send another email to them.

Go to nFS and click on the Help Center button on the main page. Click on the My Cases tab and see if they have assigned a case number to your case yet. You can click on the case and see the status of the Case. If you send a follow up to them include that case number.

If you want to post the person ID# for the person you have the problem with, I would be glad to look at it and see if I can see anything you might have missed.

Gary,
I did as you suggested and went to the help center and looked at "My Case" It shows that there is no case, but I have an email from the support center on 2 October with a case number (Case ID: 859522)

So I am at kind of a loss. Do they or don't they have a case that they are working on to solve this issue?

Not that I am paranoid (well, okay a little bit), but is it safe to send an PID via this site? I don't mind doing it but I don't want to open my familiies records to the world.....or am I even doing that if I include the PID here?

Anyway I could PM you with the number and then have you take a look?

Thanks

Pilotfly wrote:Gary,
I did as you suggested and went to the help center and looked at "My Case" It shows that there is no case, but I have an email from the support center on 2 October with a case number (Case ID: 859522)

So I am at kind of a loss. Do they or don't they have a case that they are working on to solve this issue?

Not that I am paranoid (well, okay a little bit), but is it safe to send an PID via this site? I don't mind doing it but I don't want to open my familiies records to the world.....or am I even doing that if I include the PID here?

Anyway I could PM you with the number and then have you take a look?

Thanks

If they have already replied to your original question then I would think they will be working on it unless they did not understand what you were asking. I wouldn't worry about the case number not being posted yet this soon after getting it assigned a case number.

If you feel more comfortable you can PM the PID to me or just wait for support to get back to you. I would be glad to help if I can.

Turns out Gary was right on the mark. The nFS support group sent me an email describing what the problem is (was). Turns out that my records are not connected with my parents along with the fact that Church records show that my mother is still alive. Below is the exact message they sent me -

"We received your request for help with viewing the ordinances for your mother. The problem you are having is caused through the fact the Church Membership does not have your parents connected to your membership record. You will need to ask your ward clerk to send a request to Church Membership to correct your record. However, Church Membership shows you mother as still living. So, once the connection is made, you will need to contact membership yourself and give them your mother's death information. (I have requested they make these changes, but they require the changes be requested through the proper channels - hense all the work for you to do - sorry.) To contact Church member ship to add your mother;s death information, work through the following steps ...."

Since I am the stake clerk for Montrose I called Salt Lake membership to ask specifically what steps needed to be taken to make the records right so that I could explain it to my ward clerk as well as any other clerks that may have to deal with an issue of correcting a members records i.e. connect families. The answer is to do it via the SPECIAL REQUEST capability in MLS. But, while I was on the line the membership specialist completed the family join up and entered the death information for me so that was nice.

But this does bring up a couple of questions that perhaps some of you may have dealt with. How does one tell from looking at your membership record that you aren't connected with your parents? I've been a ward clerk four different times and now the stake clerk and have looked at mine and others records numerous times and don't see how one can tell that you aren't connected (to your parents). Also while on the phone I found that Church Membership showed that my mother was shown as still living - but how was I to know that.....she died in 1957 when I was 9. Her endowment was done by proxy by her mother, my grandmother, but somehow my mother ended up in the "unknown file" and has lingered there as still alive. How can one tell other than every member calling Salt Lake and asking about their parents (which I'm sure Salt Lake doesn't have the time to be dealing with).

Sorry to have bothered all the folks with these posts since it was my question but, boy I sure learned a lot through the process.

And thanks Gary for stearing me in the right direction.

Jim

Pilotfly wrote:But this does bring up a couple of questions that perhaps some of you may have dealt with. How does one tell from looking at your membership record that you aren't connected with your parents? I've been a ward clerk four different times and now the stake clerk and have looked at mine and others records numerous times and don't see how one can tell that you aren't connected (to your parents). Also while on the phone I found that Church Membership showed that my mother was shown as still living - but how was I to know that.....she died in 1957 when I was 9. Her endowment was done by proxy by her mother, my grandmother, but somehow my mother ended up in the "unknown file" and has lingered there as still alive. How can one tell other than every member calling Salt Lake and asking about their parents (which I'm sure Salt Lake doesn't have the time to be dealing with).

On your Individual Ordinance Summary it will list your parents along with their birth dates. On the actual Membership Record it has the additional information of the Membership Record Number of the parents. You can get some clues from that information:

1. If the parents aren't listed at all, then of course you aren't linked in any way to your parents.
2. If there is no birth date and no record number, then even if there is a name, I would guess that you are not actually linked to your parents in any way that will be reliable from a genealogical perspective.
3. But if there is a record number for each parent, you can be quite sure that you are linked up.
4. Someone who died in 1957 probably wasn't ever issued a record number on the current system, so there probably isn't a good linkage anyway, although with an accurate name and birthdate it might well be linkable.

I don't know any way to make sure that a deceased member is properly recorded as deceased. There will certainly be no indication on the child's record. The fact that it doesn't show up in IGI and nFS is certainly a clue that they are not recorded as deceased, since records of deceased members are supposed to automatically be added to IGI, but there are a variety of other reasons a record might not show up there.

Thanks Alan,

I will take a look at my records next time I go down to the stake center and I bet you are probably right. I am guessing the names of my parents are there but no associated membership number. It just took me by surprise that the church shows her still living. The endowment work was done by proxy so I just assumed that the church would recognize her as deceased so the work could be done. What I guess really surprized me was the statement from the membership section that she her record was in the "unknown file". I would have thought they would have contacted me long ago to move that out.

Anyway, thanks to all for the help you provided. It's good to feel connected!

Jim