Record birth and blessing certificate

The instructions presented here https://www.lds.org/help/support/create-membership-record?lang=eng are not clear if I can add a new born to a family online or if I must use the MLS program. The steps in the link do not match online, but attempting it online prompts me with Add Child -> To create a record, select "Create Record" from the "Membership" menu.

Also do I add the new born first then generate the blessing certificate or vice versa?

Thanks

Being a ward membership clerk, I can share my experience today of creating a membership record and printing a blessing certificate entirely from LCR. I had seen the above-referenced page but had temporarily forgotten about it. It was very straightforward to 1) create the membership record, and 2) print the blessing certificate. I believe I started with the "Create Record" menu item under Membership -> Records.

Thanks for the reply. In the future, if a child is not going to be blessed until several months after its birth, should I wait to create the record until the time of blessing or is it best practice to create the record as soon as possible?

Personal opinion: Unless you have seen instruction otherwise, my inclination would be to create the membership record sooner and not wait until blessing day.

From LCR's "Create Record" form, you can print a blank form that the parents can fill in. The filled-in form also provides assurance that you had permission from parent(s) to create the membership record.

The Handbook 2 states, "the clerk prepares of Child Blessing Record ...also creates a blessing certificate." I see the option for the certificate but no option for a child blessing record. Is the child blessing record no longer an item?

marcfromm wrote:Thanks for the reply. In the future, if a child is not going to be blessed until several months after its birth, should I wait to create the record until the time of blessing or is it best practice to create the record as soon as possible?

Handbook 1, 13.6.2, provides the guidance in creating membership records for members of record.

marcfromm wrote:The Handbook 2 states, "the clerk prepares of Child Blessing Record ...also creates a blessing certificate." I see the option for the certificate but no option for a child blessing record. Is the child blessing record no longer an item?

Select Membership > Create Record. Then either enter the name, gender and birthdate and click the 'Print Create Record Form' to print a partially prefilled form or click on the appropriate Blank Create Record Form link below the buttons.

eblood66 wrote:

marcfromm wrote:The Handbook 2 states, "the clerk prepares of Child Blessing Record ...also creates a blessing certificate." I see the option for the certificate but no option for a child blessing record. Is the child blessing record no longer an item?

Select Membership > Create Record. Then either enter the name, gender and birthdate and click the 'Print Create Record Form' to print a partially prefilled form or click on the appropriate Blank Create Record Form link below the buttons.

I followed the Create Record steps, but at the end of the steps the final item was the blessing certificate, there was no option for a child blessing record, unless I totally missed it. Is the Create Record steps the same thing as preparing a Child Blessing Record?

Thanks

marcfromm wrote:I followed the Create Record steps, but at the end of the steps the final item was the blessing certificate.

The Child Record Form (formerly the Child Blessing form) should be created, filled out and signed before the record is created. The Child Record Form is where the parents give permission for the record to be created.

To print the record you only need to select Membership > Create Record in LCR. You don't have to go any further in the process. The link to print the blank form is on that first page: So first you select Create Record and print a blank form. You get that form filled out and then you come back later and use Create Record again but this time you continue through the process to the end (optionally printing the blessing certificate if needed).

What he said. Thank you, eblood66, for that excellently organized and written explanation. If it were up to me, I'd nominate that explanation to be the foundation for the update of the instruction page referenced at the top of this thread.

Thanks everyone. It's all clear now with the new lcr online procedure and the older handbook terminology.

Was recording birth and blessing certificate and adding the one (1) new child to parents and somehow ended up with two (2) babies with different Record Numbers. Need to remove one of the babies. Unable to find a way to do so. Any help would be greatly appreciated. tomhoppell@aol.com

There should be a "remove duplicate record" function somewhere. Perhaps under "delete record". Although, I'm not sure if that function is in LCR yet.

I think you take care of this at LCR with a merge function now.

It's under Membership > Merge Duplicate Records in LCR now.

The problem I'm having is to add a blessing. New baby, mother a member, father not. Blessing done out of province by the baby's uncle. I have all of the details and the mother requesting the birth and blessing be recorded as with her other two children. I've created the baby and he shows under Mom's file as a child. I can get the Blessing Certificate, but not get LCR to actually record the blessing on the child's file. Is this not an LCR function yet and must be done in MLS?

dbrewerton wrote:I can get the Blessing Certificate, but not get LCR to actually record the blessing on the child's file. Is this not an LCR function yet and must be done in MLS?

Blessings have never been recorded on membership records. They are not saving ordinances. In MLS it would temporarily store the blessing information to make it easier to print the certificate but the blessing information was never transferred to CHQ and would be lost when the membership record moved to a new unit. In LCR, the blessing information just isn't stored at all. So if you've created the record and printed the certificate then you've done everything you need to do.

I proceeded to follow the instructions to Create a Record for a newborn but soon ran into questions. 1. When I entered father and mother's name, both were preferred names vice full names. Also, the mother's last name was married name vice maiden. Am I doing something wrong or is that the way the program is supposed to work?

mcdanielgaroldstephen1 wrote:I proceeded to follow the instructions to Create a Record for a newborn but soon ran into questions. 1. When I entered father and mother's name, both were preferred names vice full names. Also, the mother's last name was married name vice maiden. Am I doing something wrong or is that the way the program is supposed to work?

If you're talking about the names that show when selecting the mother and father from the list of members of the ward and which display immediately after selecting, then yes. It shows the preferred name and age to help make sure you've selected the correct person. When it creates the record the child will be linked to the parent's membership record directly. And when it generates the blessing certificate it will use the the fathers full name and the mothers full maiden name which are pulled from the parent's membership records.