received record with incorrect address

recently we have had a number of records moved into the ward from other units or from church headquarters that the address's are non-existent or not in our ward, what do we do with those ?

If it's from another ward, you can use the Church Directory of Organizations and Leaders (cdol.LDS.org) to find contact info for the clerk in the ward it came from. They may have more information.

dinsdct wrote:recently we have had a number of records moved into the ward from other units or from church headquarters that the address's are non-existent or not in our ward, what do we do with those ?

If the address is not in your ward, I would move the record to the ward that geographically covers the address. If the address does not exist, I would return it to the ward it came from.

lajackson wrote:If the address does not exist, I would return it to the ward it came from.

That is not possible without an address in that ward.

jdlessley wrote:

lajackson wrote:If the address does not exist, I would return it to the ward it came from.

That is not possible without an address in that ward.

You can, however, contact the clerk in the previous ward and ask them to pull it back. That way you can also let them know that the address was invalid so they know why it came back and can hopefully find the correct address.

jdlessley wrote:

lajackson wrote:If the address does not exist, I would return it to the ward it came from.

That is not possible without an address in that ward.

I don't know about now, but it used to be possible. The prior ward could have sent it by specifying the ward. You can send it back by returning the favor. It could also explain why he's received records for addresses that's not in the ward.

It seems too many clerks think they have to specify the new ward when moving a record. That's not true and tends to cause more problems. Generally, unless the member is known to be attending a singles or language unit, it's best to leave that blank and let SLC's computers figure it out.

russellhltn wrote:I don't know about now, but it used to be possible.

With the switch to LCR that is no longer possible (at least I can't figure out how to do it).

russellhltn wrote:It seems too many clerks think they have to specify the new ward when moving a record. That's not true and tends to cause more problems.

LCR works completely differently than MLS did. In LCR you have to first specify an address. It then presents you with a list of wards to which that address is assigned and you select one of them (the residential ward is the first and default option). There is an option to search for and select a ward that isn't on the list but it takes extra steps. So now the clerk does need to specify the new ward but unless they do extra work it should be the residential ward or a specialty ward for that location.

Unless LCR has gotten better recently you can still beat it a number of ways and send a bad address on. I haven't tried recently but surely the old tricks still happen.

Under old MLS you could override and send it one with no address or the most common other answers were to repeat the town and state as a street address or use the new wards church building address or the bishops address in place of a real address. Both of the last 2 probably still work under LCR. If not a nearby business address will surely make LCR happy so it can be beaten.(it isn't the correct thing to do but it almost certainly can be done)

Back when I took over as clerk we had 2 or 3 dozen families in the ward who's records had been moved in that way. I tried to be sure on my watch it never happened with outgoing records. If that means we sit on records who we know are elsewhere for a decade, oh well.

jirp wrote:Back when I took over as clerk we had 2 or 3 dozen families in the ward who's records had been moved in that way. I tried to be sure on my watch it never happened with outgoing records. If that means we sit on records who we know are elsewhere for a decade, oh well.

I would not wait a decade. If I knew the member had moved and I did not have a good address, I would follow the instructions for moving the record without an address, then send it.

jirp wrote:Under old MLS you could override and send it one with no address or the most common other answers were to repeat the town and state as a street address or use the new wards church building address or the bishops address in place of a real address.

If I got a record like that, there's a good chance it would be flying back so fast that there would be collateral damage upon impact. I realize the sending ward may not have every last detail, but if there's no clues to track down the member, that's just low.

lajackson wrote:

jirp wrote:Back when I took over as clerk we had 2 or 3 dozen families in the ward who's records had been moved in that way. I tried to be sure on my watch it never happened with outgoing records. If that means we sit on records who we know are elsewhere for a decade, oh well.

I would not wait a decade. If I knew the member had moved and I did not have a good address, I would follow the instructions for moving the record without an address, then send it.

Why? Church headquarters will wait a month or 2 and ship it back to you.(learned the hard way early) If you really get lucky they will wait a few years before shipping it back. But what ever happens it is up to you to solve or sit on. We got 100's of bad addresses either fixed, found or the records shipped out to an indentified location but time and energy is limited and the unknowns can sit till others are cleaned up.

russellhltn wrote:

jirp wrote:Under old MLS you could override and send it one with no address or the most common other answers were to repeat the town and state as a street address or use the new wards church building address or the bishops address in place of a real address.

If I got a record like that, there's a good chance it would be flying back so fast that there would be collateral damage upon impact. I realize the sending ward may not have every last detail, but if there's no clues to track down the member, that's just low.

Most of them didn't happen during my time so it left them for me to deal with. We did eventually get most of them found and fixed but it took a lot.

jirp wrote:Why?

Because that is what we have been asked to do. If I was making progress on finding them, of course I would not send them back, but I would not take ten years to do it.

As for the Church policy of returning records to the ward that sent them in, unless the Church provided new information to help track down the member, I would immediately send back the record, having already done everything I could to locate the member.

I once received a letter from the Membership Department informing me that membership records were to be retained in the ward that covered the address on the membership record (they are). I sent the record back, with a letter informing them that the 2" by 3" real estate described as the address on the membership record (a Post Office Box), was located in another ward, that the U.S. Postal Service would not provide the real address of the owner, and that the Church was welcome to see if they could pry the information out of the Post Office.

They sent the record to the other ward with the Post Office, who followed the eight- or nine-step process, could not locate the member, and then sent it back.

Please don't get me wrong. We make a valiant effort to locate every member for every membership record we receive.

Having records in your ward of members who aren't actually there also causes the quarterly report and unit statistics to be inaccurate.

jirp wrote:Why? Church headquarters will wait a month or 2 and ship it back to you.(learned the hard way early)

Yes, they've started doing that since 2013. I have to wonder how successful that's been.

russellhltn wrote:

jirp wrote:Why? Church headquarters will wait a month or 2 and ship it back to you.(learned the hard way early)

Yes, they've started doing that since 2013. I have to wonder how successful that's been.

The actually must have started it earlier because I got my first records back in late 2011 or early 2012.

lajackson wrote:Because that is what we have been asked to do.

I tried is all I can say here. I know what I was supposed to do but there wasn't enough of me to reach all expectations. If the lord wanted more he either needed to provide better help or call someone better suited to the task.

jirp wrote:They actually must have started it earlier because I got my first records back in late 2011 or early 2012.

They were doing it in 1985. This is nothing new.

jirp wrote:I tried is all I can say here. I know what I was supposed to do but there wasn't enough of me to reach all expectations. If the lord wanted more he either needed to provide better help or call someone better suited to the task.

The responsibility for resolving issues with records for people who perhaps do not live in the ward does not fall exclusively on the ward clerk, or even on all the clerks. It is a ward council responsibility, backed by all the organizations represented in the ward council, which includes the entire ward. Ultimately, it is the bishop's responsibility to organize the effort so that it can be accomplished in wisdom and order.

The advice given in Mosiah 4:27 is always relevant: "And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order."

On occasion, a member leaving the ward will not divulge their new address (for whatever personal reason) but the person will say that they're moving into a particular ward. In the absence of new address info, what else can one do in such cases but to move it to the new ward without an address (& explain why in the comments, if there's enough room to do so)?

cspinfo@telus.net wrote:On occasion, a member leaving the ward will not divulge their new address (for whatever personal reason) but the person will say that they're moving into a particular ward. In the absence of new address info, what else can one do in such cases but to move it to the new ward without an address (& explain why in the comments, if there's enough room to do so)?

You could contact the clerk of that ward directly and give him the information you have.