Find past ward for a member

Our bishop often likes to call a new member's most recent bishop before extending a calling to confirm worthiness and character, especially for callings that work with children. Usually, we can easily determine who that is by looking at the Prior Ward on the member's record. Occasionally, though, the member's record was mistakenly sent to another ward in our stake that covers the same apartment complex, so the "Prior Ward" is that ward instead of the ward that the member was actually in.

Is it possible to determine the ward that a member was in before the Prior Ward, without contacting church HQ? I'd love to have access to a "ward history" of a member.

For the purpose of locating "lost" members, it might also be useful to know how long they were in each ward. For example, if they were in the prior ward for only a few months but in the ward before that for several years, we could contact the ward that they lived in the longest to try to get a current address.

That information isn't available except possibly by calling CHQ.

TroyYoung wrote:For the purpose of locating "lost" members, it might also be useful to know how long they were in each ward. For example, if they were in the prior ward for only a few months but in the ward before that for several years, we could contact the ward that they lived in the longest to try to get a current address.

We may be reading our directives a bit differently. I've always interpreted the directive to contact friends and family to be to work within the ward boundaries - or at least the immediate area. CHQ has sent inquires for relatives that are in other wards. So I leave it to them.

If I were to call other wards, they wouldn't know me from Adam. The call would end up sounding a lot like a fishing expedition (which in a way, it is.)

Our stake has been given the same directive from our area – to contact each ward the member has lived in during the past year, if possible, before extending a calling (maybe we're in the same area). This is, of course, an extension of the policy about contacting previous bishops in Handbook 2, 19.1.1, and it's very hard to do without being able to see ward history.

I'd recommend having your stake president talk to the area authority to see if he is able to encourage a change in Leader and Clerk Resources. Sometimes these types of directives come and the leaders that give them aren't aware of the limitations of the tools we have. It can be helpful for multiple stakes to bring it to the attention of the area.

sbradshaw wrote:I'd recommend having your stake president talk to the area authority to see if he is able to encourage a change in Leader and Clerk Resources. Sometimes these types of directives come and the leaders that give them aren't aware of the limitations of the tools we have. It can be helpful for multiple stakes to bring it to the attention of the area.

If there's no work around expect to call CHQ (and I don't think there is), then if there's enough calls to CHQ for this information, that may trigger a change.

It appears that Leader and Clerk Resources will soon be on the same page. From the LCR 4.0 release notes (dated to be released in February):

• Enhanced the member profile by adding the ability to see all units a member has been in during the past 12 months.

sbradshaw wrote:It appears that Leader and Clerk Resources will soon be on the same page. From the LCR 4.0 release notes (dated to be released in February):

• Enhanced the member profile by adding the ability to see all units a member has been in during the past 12 months.

I was very happy to see this enhancement show up...it's useful in more than one scenario.