Editing children's names

We recently received a family's records into our ward. The children's names on the parent's records are listed as: "last name first name comma last name first name". The computer doesn't recognize it as an error, since there's a comma making it think it's a legitimate name. All the children are this way, and there are several.
I can find no way to edit the children's names, short of removing them and reentering them. Please tell me there's an easier way.
Yes, I'm supposed to go to the Stake Clerk for help, but that's also me.

E&LDow wrote:The children's names on the parent's records are listed as: "last name first name comma last name first name".

Are the names that way on the records of the children? That would be the place to edit the names, if you have their records.

E&LDow wrote:We recently received a family's records into our ward. The children's names on the parent's records are listed as: "last name first name comma last name first name". The computer doesn't recognize it as an error, since there's a comma making it think it's a legitimate name. All the children are this way, and there are several.
I can find no way to edit the children's names, short of removing them and reentering them. Please tell me there's an easier way.
Yes, I'm supposed to go to the Stake Clerk for help, but that's also me.

You may have to make those edits from a ward install of MLS? (Not sure if Stake installs of MLS can alter membership records like that)

You should be able to edit the names and it sounds like the "Last Name" text field probably has both names and the "First Name" text field also has both names. The fix would be to split the names up into their appropriate fields. When asked what the "reason" for the name change is, I would probably choose "Spelling Correction" or something similar.

mkmurray wrote:Not sure if Stake installs of MLS can alter membership records like that

Other than assigning them to stake callings and activating a temple recommend, I don't think the stake can make do ANY changes to a member's record.

The children's names are correct on their individual records, just messed up on the paren't records listing of children.
Yes, the last name and first name fields contain both names on the parent's records listing of children.

RussellHltn wrote:Other than assigning them to stake callings and activating a temple recommend, I don't think the stake can make do ANY changes to a member's record.

That's true, I've tried as a Stake butt't Clerk to update member's records to show ordinations, etc. when the Ward Clerk just can't seem to get around to it. The Stake can't do it, has to be the Ward.

E&LDow wrote:The children's names are correct on their individual records, just messed up on the paren't records listing of children.
Yes, the last name and first name fields contain both names on the parent's records listing of children.

So when you go to the Children tab of one of the parent's individual record, what do you see? Are the children's names actual blue links? If so, when you click on the link, does it bring up a screen where you can edit the name?

Alan_Brown wrote:So when you go to the Children tab of one of the parent's individual record, what do you see? Are the children's names actual blue links? If so, when you click on the link, does it bring up a screen where you can edit the name?

The "children" tab is where the problem is. The children are listed as last name first name comma last name first name. Actually, it doesn't link, since there are no individual records in the ward that match the name as listed on the parent's records. The children's records show their names correctly.

E&LDow wrote:The "children" tab is where the problem is. The children are listed as last name first name comma last name first name. Actually, it doesn't link, since there are no individual records in the ward that match the name as listed on the parent's records. The children's records show their names correctly.

It appears the linking is not correct then, if indeed you don't see a link you can click on to go to each child's record in the "Children" tab.

You may want to go to each child's record and redo the information for father and mother. Since all members are in the same unit, you will want to use the functionality provided where you can choose the name of each parent from the list of ward members, having the rest of the information (full name, birthdate, record number, etc.) be auto-populated in the other text fields. This will of course have to be done in the ward's install of MLS, but it should fix the linking I think.

mkmurray wrote:It appears the linking is not correct then, if indeed you don't see a link you can click on to go to each child's record in the "Children" tab.

You may want to go to each child's record and redo the information for father and mother. Since all members are in the same unit, you will want to use the functionality provided where you can choose the name of each parent from the list of ward members, having the rest of the information (full name, birthdate, record number, etc.) be auto-populated in the other text fields. This will of course have to be done in the ward's install of MLS, but it should fix the linking I think.

When you look at the Children tab for each of the parents, do the children have Membership Record Numbers listed? If they don't, then the above suggestion would most likely duplicate each of the children on the parents' records. But that might not be so bad -- you would then just have to remove each incorrect child from the parents' records.

The names of parents are correct in childrens individual records. There is no link to the children's records from the parents records because the children's names are not correctly shown on the "children" tab in the parent's records. I guess I'm not describing this very clearly. I'll use made up names and hopefully that will help.
On the parent's records, under the children tab, children are listed as:
Jones William, Jones William, DOB, Conf. Date, member number,
Jones Betty, Jones Betty, DOB, Conf. Date, Memb #, and so on.

The link doesn't work because there is no individual record for a "Jones William, Jones William". The child's record is simply "Jones, William".
I want to find an easy way to correct the listing under the children tab of the parent's records.

E&LDow wrote:The names of parents are correct in childrens individual records. There is no link to the children's records from the parents records because the children's names are not correctly shown on the "children" tab in the parent's records. I guess I'm not describing this very clearly. I'll use made up names and hopefully that will help.
On the parent's records, under the children tab, children are listed as:
Jones William, Jones William, DOB, Conf. Date, member number,
Jones Betty, Jones Betty, DOB, Conf. Date, Memb #, and so on.

The link doesn't work because there is no individual record for a "Jones William, Jones William". The child's record is simply "Jones, William".
I want to find an easy way to correct the listing under the children tab of the parent's records.

I think the easiest way is to add the children to the father's record. It's really quite simple if the children are members of the ward -- you just select them from a list. You'll be asked if they are also the children of his current spouse; answering yes will add them to the mother's record as well.

I'm guessing that because the membership record number is attached to the records on the parents' records, that the new records will replace the old ones. But if not, you can quickly remove the children from both the father's and mother's records before you add the children back.

Alan_Brown wrote:I think the easiest way is to add the children to the father's record. It's really quite simple if the children are members of the ward -- you just select them from a list. You'll be asked if they are also the children of his current spouse; answering yes will add them to the mother's record as well.

I'm guessing that because the membership record number is attached to the records on the parents' records, that the new records will replace the old ones. But if not, you can quickly remove the children from both the father's and mother's records before you add the children back.

Thanks, that's what I was looking for.
It's kind of embarrassing, it a "well duh" kind of a thing.
Thanks again.

E&LDow wrote:The names of parents are correct in childrens individual records. There is no link to the children's records from the parents records because the children's names are not correctly shown on the "children" tab in the parent's records.

Okay, but is the reverse true?

Can you go to the child's record, click on the parents tab, and then follow the links back to the parent's record? Does the father's name (and mother's name) on the child's record actually a link back to the father's (or mother's) record? If not, I think that would be the safest way of correcting the problem.

To fix that, simply edit each child's record by editing the parents listed. When that is done, I suspect that when you go back and look at the parents' records all the children will be duplicated like this:

1) Jones William, Jones William
2) Jones, William
3) Jones Betty, Jones Betty
4) Jones, Betty

In this example, you would then delete the records 1 and 3.