Baptism information

i noticed when i look someone up online on LDS.org (from home), it doesn't show any information of the baptism except for the persons name, and their birthdate. am i able to view who baptized the person on MLS?

Until about a year or slightly more, the person who performed a baptism was not recorded in the main CHQ databases. It was only recorded in MLS and that information would be lost once the member moved out of the ward.

If the person performing the baptism doesn't show up online then they were probably baptized more than a year or two ago. MLS will only show that information if they were in your unit when they were baptized and haven't moved out and back in since. If they have changed units since they were baptized then the information is not available.

thank you

eblood66 wrote:Until about a year or slightly more, the person who performed a baptism was not recorded in the main CHQ databases. It was only recorded in MLS and that information would be lost once the member moved out of the ward.

If the person performing the baptism doesn't show up online then they were probably baptized more than a year or two ago. MLS will only show that information if they were in your unit when they were baptized and haven't moved out and back in since. If they have changed units since they were baptized then the information is not available.

There might have been a time when they weren't tracked, but my baptism shows who performed it and that was from several years ago. Both my parents and I have changed units a few times in between.

jonesrk wrote:There might have been a time when they weren't tracked, but my baptism shows who performed it and that was from several years ago. Both my parents and I have changed units a few times in between.

I think I've had this discussion before. IIRC, it's not in CMIS, but it is in LCR. Once in LCR, it transfers to other wards just like HT/VT records. MLS has the information, but since CMIS didn't support it, there was no way for MLS to forward that information to other units.

I thought it odd that LCR was tracking something that the church explicitly stopped tracking years ago. I assumed MLS had it to assist in printing the Baptismal Certificate. Since it wasn't in CMIS, there was no way for MLS to forward that information to other units.

jonesrk wrote:There might have been a time when they weren't tracked, but my baptism shows who performed it and that was from several years ago. Both my parents and I have changed units a few times in between.

Interesting. I just looked at my record and it does show who baptized me (and my baptism was more than a few years ago). But I'm pretty sure that not too long ago it didn't (at least not in MLS). Looking over my ward as a whole, it looks like most of those over about 33 have it and those under 15 do as well but those in between do not.

I wonder if the older information was available in some archived data store and it was restored sometime in the last couple years.

eblood66 wrote:Looking over my ward as a whole, it looks like most of those over about 33 have it and those under 15 do as well but those in between do not.

That sounds about right. Looking at the unit history in CDOL, the "great simplification" I talked about must have been between May 1981 and Oct 1993 (although I think it was closer to May 1983 and May 1986). The math doesn't look quite right for the 33 year old (baptized 33 years ago works better). But a "under 15" would have been baptized around 2011. It appears LCR went beta around 2010.

russellhltn wrote:The math doesn't look quite right for the 33 year old (baptized 33 years ago works better).

I was definitely looking at ages.

eblood66 wrote:I was definitely looking at ages.

It would probably be better to look at the baptismal date. After all, a 33-year old convert could have been baptized last year.

russellhltn wrote:

eblood66 wrote:I was definitely looking at ages.

It would probably be better to look at the baptismal date. After all, a 33-year old convert could have been baptized last year.

Except that I know each of the persons I looked at and know that they were born into the church (which is why I picked them to look at)

Looking at the baptism dates it looks like the line is somewhere around 92-93 but it isn't a hard line. I found a few in 92 with information and one in 93 but others in 92 without. But nothing after 93 until more recently.

It looks to me like a phased software/technology release. I don't know the exact dates of the original MIS release and placement of PCs into units. But I do know my father was working on the original MMS system for mission offices around that time. So if they were placing PCs in missions, it's probably around the time they put them in units as well.

eblood66 wrote:Looking at the baptism dates it looks like the line is somewhere around 92-93 but it isn't a hard line. I found a few in 92 with information and one in 93 but others in 92 without. But nothing after 93 until more recently.

I do not remember the exact dates (after all, it was 25 years ago), but it was around 1992-93 that they stopped recording who performed ordinances, including Melchizedek Priesthood ordinations. I believe it had partly to do with computer capability, and in particular, the ability to store data. That was also the time when they were switching from all caps membership records to upper/lowercase records.

By the very late 90s, someone realized it would not be possible to trace priesthood lines of authority, and the recording of who performed ordinances began once again. Computers had become more capable, as well. This was also the point where clerks were asked to scour their offices to look for paper copies of priesthood ordinations so that the information could be added into the system.

russellhltn wrote:

jonesrk wrote:There might have been a time when they weren't tracked, but my baptism shows who performed it and that was from several years ago. Both my parents and I have changed units a few times in between.

I think I've had this discussion before. IIRC, it's not in CMIS, but it is in LCR. Once in LCR, it transfers to other wards just like HT/VT records. MLS has the information, but since CMIS didn't support it, there was no way for MLS to forward that information to other units.

I thought it odd that LCR was tracking something that the church explicitly stopped tracking years ago. I assumed MLS had it to assist in printing the Baptismal Certificate. Since it wasn't in CMIS, there was no way for MLS to forward that information to other units.

The data is in CMIS.

eblood66 wrote:I don't know the exact dates of the original MIS release and placement of PCs into units.

I don't know as there's any connection there. MIS held membership information, but wasn't the membership record. The official record was still paper. MIS was a reporting tool. Prior to that, one had to wait for the quarterly reports (like the directory) from CHQ. I don't think it was until around 1997 that MIS got access to the modem that FIS used. Because everything had to be hand entered, MIS only had a simplified version of the membership record. I'm pretty sure things like dates in CMIS were just flags in MIS.

Something else to check - see who were baptisms recorded by missions as opposed to wards. There might be a phase-in process there.

russellhltn wrote: Something else to check - see who were baptisms recorded by missions as opposed to wards. There might be a phase-in process there.

Now that is an area where the data we get from the mission often doesn't have the person who performed the baptism, but it can and often does. I'm guessing that if varies a lot based on the quality of the data on the form and the mission clerk who enters the data.

jonesrk wrote:I'm guessing that if varies a lot based on the quality of the data on the form and the mission clerk who enters the data.

I'm guessing it depends on if the baptism was done by a missionary or someone else. If it was a missionary, it would be easy to get the needed information. I don't know as the mission clerk would have access to the member data to look up the information if it was done by a ward member. Worse, if it was done by someone from another ward.