Child of unmarried parents

I have been presented with an interesting situation. On Sunday, we will be blessing the child of two cohabiting unmarried members who recently moved into our ward boundaries.

The information we have been give is that they plan on getting married in October.

So, my dilemma is, how should I group them as a household? Should I keep the parents as separate households until their marriage, if so, which household should include the child? Or should I go ahead and group them all together as one household.

Now, to complicate matters, the father never knew his biological father until about two years ago and is now very involved with him and plans on changing his surname from his mother's maiden name to that of his biological father when he gets married. As part of this, they are giving the baby the surname of the father's biological father. So we have three people living in one home all with different surnames but desiring to be considered as one family.

Since they aren't married yet, they are still two separate households, just happen to be at the same address. The child's head of household should be the mother.

rpyne wrote:So, my dilemma is, how should I group them as a household? Should I keep the parents as separate households until their marriage, if so, which household should include the child? Or should I go ahead and group them all together as one household.

There is nothing I can see documented anywhere that specifically defines "household." MLS won't let you add someone as a spouse to a household unless they are actually a spouse, but you can add unrelated people to a household as "other". It is certainly possible to group them all as one household. That seems simplest, but I could understand that there might be concerns about whether that implies any endorsement of the current living arrangements.

A clerk shouldn't have to decide this -- fundamentally it is the bishop's call. The bishop should probably consider how this group of people should be home taught, and how they should be listed on various reports that are grouped by household.

rpyne wrote:So, my dilemma is, how should I group them as a household?

Like Alan, I'm not aware of any policies that would affect the grouping of households. If I were to attempt to find something that fits this situation, I think I'd find it under "Disciplinary Councils". :rolleyes: But that's something for the Bishop and Stake President to deal with.

rpyne wrote:Now, to complicate matters, the father never knew his biological father until about two years ago and is now very involved with him and plans on changing his surname from his mother's maiden name to that of his biological father when he gets married. As part of this, they are giving the baby the surname of the father's biological father. So we have three people living in one home all with different surnames but desiring to be considered as one family.

I believe the policy is to record the member's legal name. MLS is fine with what you have described. However, in some places (like LUWS) the household will be listed under the father's surname. The print-outs may not be what people want, but I don't know as you have many options here.

It looks like the issue will only exist for two months. Whatever the bishop decides you will be making a change in October after the marriage anyway.

Bearing in mind that Church records are supposed to reflect legal relationships, I'd go with bcpalmer's recommendation.
You can list them all in one household, just show the mother as head of house, the child as hers, and them male as "other" until they are legally married. After the wedding, change the record to show the current legal status. Your state may or may not allow the biological father to be the legal father merely upon marrying the mother, adoption might be necessary.

E&LDow wrote:You can list them all in one household, just show the mother as head of house, the child as hers, and them male as "other" until they are legally married.

Um, which if I understand correctly, would cause his name to appear the same as if he was her child. I don't think that's desirable.

RussellHltn wrote:Um, which if I understand correctly, would cause his name to appear the same as if he was her child. I don't think that's desirable.

No, the members of household has different listings for "child", "spouse" and "other". As they are not married, the male would be an "other" until they are married. Then he would become the head of household and she would be shown as "spouse".
"Other" is also used when another relative, say brother or cousin, is living in the household and not head of his own household, for whatever reason.
For that matter, the male could be listed as head of household, by himself, and the mother as head of her own household. Makes no difference that they are at the same address.

E&LDow wrote:No, the members of household has different listings for "child", "spouse" and "other".

I have not noticed this before within MLS. I have only seen 3 designations: if your are not the "head of household" or the "spouse," MLS designates you as "other." I don't recall seeing a "child" designation.

Additionally, I haven't found a direct way to manipulate these designations. Apparently others haven't either, which accounts for the various threads in the forums about how to "fix" these designations when they happen to be incorrect.

jbh001 wrote:I have not noticed this before within MLS. I have only seen 3 designations: if your are not the "head of household" or the "spouse," MLS designates you as "other." I don't recall seeing a "child" designation.

There most definitely is a "child" designation -- that tends to be one of the most common designations. If you add a child to the parents, on the Children tab of either of the parents' individual records, the person added will be a "Child" in the household. Or if you add a child through New Child of Record, the designation will also be "Child".

But if on the household record you choose "Add Member", the person added will be "Other". See the screen below for an example from the MLS test data; I gratuitously added Debra Ann Mary to the Ayala household this way, and so she is listed as Other.

Alan_Brown wrote:There most definitely is a "child" designation

Thanks for the clarification, and the screenshot. It's embarassing when you find out things have been hiding from you in plain sight the whole time.

Alan_Brown wrote:I gratuitously added Debra Ann Mary to the Ayala household this way, and so she is listed as Other.

How does it appear in the ward list?

How would it appear in LUWS?

My understanding is due the way it's presented in those lists it makes "other" look like a child.

RussellHltn wrote:How does it appear in the ward list?

How would it appear in LUWS?

My understanding is due the way it's presented in those lists it makes "other" look like a child.

On the ward list, an "other" member of the household appears as a household member. If you are making an assumption that every household member is a child, then an "other" household member would look like a child with a different last name.

Of course, you don't have to make that assumption, and you could just assume that a household member is simply a household member. There's nothing in the interface that says people listed under the head of household are children.

The issue is the same in LUWS.

That assumption is easy for people to make when looking at a household listing on LUWS since the HoH and spouse are offset from the household members giving rise to the idea that there are parents and children. Perhaps the allignment of household members as displayed in a household listing on LUWS should be different for other adults in a household that are not children or underage dependents of a married couple that are head of household and spouse.