Old Member Records

Can I get some advice. My ward was one of the oldest wards in the church at one time and I have membership records, new child blessing records, ordinance records, etc... where some of these records date back to the 70's. We are working on cleaning up and consolidating. This includes these old membership records. Is there any problem with me just shredding these records or is there any reason that I need to keep them?

Thanks in advance.

Assuming the records are computerized (computer printouts)., I'd think you'd be safe in shredding them. The one exception is priesthood ordinations. SLC wasn't recoding the "by whom" for a period of time and the certificates may be the only record of their priesthood linage.

These are all child blessing record and certificates. The white (top) and yellow carbon paper. They are the forms that are filled out to record the baby blessings. I'm assuming that they were recorded but the part I'm not sure about is when I look at an individuals records there is no screen showing the record of a baby blessing. Where is the baby blessing recorded and shown on the computer screen? The first recordings on the Ordinances screen is for Baptism and Confirmation. Nothing before Baptism such as baby blessing.

I found a bunch of priesthood ordination forms. You mentioned that SLC wasn't recording the "by whom" for a period of time. The issue I'm seeing is that on many of these records (forms) that I have, the members are no longer in our ward and I have no way of seeing if the "by whom" was filled out correctly. So what do I do with these records? Hold onto them inefficiently or is it OK shred them?

kbhuffaker wrote:These are all child blessing record and certificates. The white (top) and yellow carbon paper. They are the forms that are filled out to record the baby blessings. I'm assuming that they were recorded but the part I'm not sure about is when I look at an individuals records there is no screen showing the record of a baby blessing. Where is the baby blessing recorded and shown on the computer screen? The first recordings on the Ordinances screen is for Baptism and Confirmation. Nothing before Baptism such as baby blessing.

Baby blessings are not saving ordinances so the church hasn't retained information on them for many years. In MLS the baby blessing information was only retained locally and was never transferred to CHQ. Now with the change to the online LCR the church may be retaining them for practical reasons but I don't think there is any intention to put in information on old blessings. If any of the families are still in your ward they may be interested in having the records but there is no reason to keep them for church purposes.

kbhuffaker wrote:I found a bunch of priesthood ordination forms. You mentioned that SLC wasn't recording the "by whom" for a period of time. The issue I'm seeing is that on many of these records (forms) that I have, the members are no longer in our ward and I have no way of seeing if the "by whom" was filled out correctly. So what do I do with these records? Hold onto them inefficiently or is it OK shred them?

You may want to check with Local Unit Support on whether they want the records in order to check whether all the information has been recorded.