Unable to delete marriage to deceased nonmember

I have not found a way in MLS or LCR to delete/terminate a marriage of a brother to a deceased nonmember spouse. (The brother has since remarried civilly, so the end goal is to add the new spouse.) The following have been attempted without success:

• In LCR, add the new spouse directly: save is rejected, saying the deceased spouse must be removed.
• In LCR, edit the current/deceased spouse: no option to delete marriage record; tried emptying all fields: save is rejected due to an empty required field.
• In LCR, record death: The deceased nonmember spouse won't come up in the select list.
• In MLS: After going to Membership -> View and Update, there is no 'Remove Nonmember' option. The deceased nonmember spouse does not show up in out-of-unit members or temporary memberships.
• In MLS: All other attempted operations redirect to LCR.

From LCR, viewing the brother's membership record shows the marriage to the deceased nonmember spouse with "Member: Deceased".

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

I believe you have to terminate the marriage in MLS with the reason: Death of spouse. Sorry I cannot give more information - I am not in front of the Clerk computer where MLS resides at the time.

In LCR, find the member profile and select the Family tab. Click the Change Marriage Status button and select Death of Spouse for the Reason. Enter the date of the spouses death and click Save.

I appreciate both speedy responses.

I tried to find a place in MLS to terminate the marriage, but if there was a button with that title, it redirected to LCR. If such a button does exist that does not redirect to LCR, I was not able to find it, so more detailed directions would be gratefully appreciated.

From the brother's member profile, on the family tab, there is no "Change Marriage Status" button. Using Control-F in Firefox, the word "change" does not appear, the word "marriage" appears four places (section heading, marriage date, marriage place, and 'Add Marriage'), and the word "status" does not appear on the page. The gray heading directly above the spouse's name is "Spouse (Deceased, Nonmember)". There is no 'Change Marriage Status' button after clicking either the edit-marriage button or the 'Add Marriage' button. The only items in the Actions drop-down menu are Move Restriction, Move Record Out, and Record Death (which would attempt to record the death of the still-living member brother.

From the "Family" tab, click the pencil icon to the right of the spouse's name. Then the "Change Marriage Status" button will appear below the marriage information fields. Once clicked, you can choose the reason, such as "Death of spouse".

Hope this helps.

Thank you for that additional response.

From the "Family" tab on the member's profile, I click the pencil-looking hieroglyphic to edit the marriage, but there is _no_ "Change Marriage Status" button. Using Control-F to find the individual words did not reveal a button with anything resembling that title. Not that it helped much, but I was able to set the country (had been blank) for the marriage place, and that change saved successfully.

mfmohlma wrote:From the "Family" tab, click the pencil icon to the right of the spouse's name. Then the "Change Marriage Status" button will appear below the marriage information fields. Once clicked, you can choose the reason, such as "Death of spouse".

Yep. I forgot to include the pencil icon step.

rmrichesjr wrote:There is no 'Change Marriage Status' button after clicking either the edit-marriage button or the 'Add Marriage' button.

Ok. I just found a similar situation in our ward. When the spouse is deceased the marriage information still shows up (and can be edited) but there is also an Add Marriage button.

So the marriage has already been terminated due to death of spouse. You don't need to do anything about it. Just use the Add Marriage button to add the new marriage.

eblood66 wrote:Just use the Add Marriage button to add the new marriage.

Yes. Looking at folks in similar situations, it does appear that the fact that the Add Marriage link appears at all means that the previous marriage has already been terminated.

mfmohlma wrote:

eblood66 wrote:Just use the Add Marriage button to add the new marriage.

Yes. Looking at folks in similar situations, it does appear that the fact that the Add Marriage link appears at all means that the previous marriage has already been terminated.

One other way to tell if the marriage has been terminated is to go to the member list, click on households and find the brother. If the household still shows the wife's name the marriage is still active.

Had already tried that [the 'Add Marriage' button] multiple times but had always got an error message that a current marriage is already recorded. After re-re-re-reading the message, it finally dawned on me that it's saying it is the new WIFE whose membership record shows a current marriage, not the member in my ward. I'll inform the member in my ward that he needs to have HER ward's clerk update HER record.

Thank you for the responses. If it weren't for the detail and persistence in your kindly responses, I would not have seen the light, and the problem would have continued to exist between my chair and my keyboard.

Edit: Clarify that it was the 'Add Marriage' button I had already tried.

rmrichesjr wrote:Had already tried that [the 'Add Marriage' button] multiple times but had always got an error message that a current marriage is already recorded. After re-re-re-reading the message, it finally dawned on me that it's saying it is the new WIFE whose membership record shows a current marriage, not the member in my ward. I'll inform the member in my ward that he needs to have HER ward's clerk update HER record.

If the new wife is now in your ward you should request the records and then you can update her record.

jonesrk wrote: If the new wife is now in your ward you should request the records and then you can update her record.

Thank you for that suggestion. That would have simplified things if the two of them were going to be in my ward.