Created Membership Audit issue - marriage to non-member

In doing a membership audit recently, we marked an inactive member as having been married since we know she was. That is currently our only remaining exception in the audit report. The issue is that we discovered from the family that she would prefer that her husband's name not be added anywhere. We want to respect that request.

Should we just leave the exception and ignore it? Can we record a marriage with just date and location without the name of the spouse?

Or would others just go "Well, weddings are public information, so just record it anyhow" ignoring the wishes of the person involved?

Thanks!

A third option is to call GSD and see what they can do to help. They might be able to update her status without entering the spouse's name. No doubt they've run into this situation before.

As an update... I called the GSD and their solution was simply to run a new audit and NOT mark them this time. That overrides the last audit and clears it out.

That fixes the audit, but that still leaves her looking like she's single when she is not. As such, her name will show up on Single Member lists.

Oh, I know. It's a problem, but they had no solution for that.

I think I'd be inclined to use his last name (assuming the wife took his name) and first name of "Mr". I think that along with a marriage year should be enough to record the marriage without giving any details.

That way, the records will show her as married, but not give any information that can't already be guessed.

Yeah, I guess my feeling is that if the Church wants a way to record a marriage without filling in the names, then they should make that an option. I'm not going to put in incorrect data (i.e. "first name of 'Mr'") just to get around the system.

We shouldn't have to work around the system. If they want marriage recorded without a name, then they should give us that option. If not, then so be it.

I wouldn't rule out the possibility that what I'm suggesting is the approved method, but the employee you talked to didn't know it. You might want to follow up up with an email or a special request on that record to see what they say. The problem with a phone call is it puts pressure on to come up with an answer immediately. A email allows time to consult and research.

Personally, I think not recording the marriage is a bigger issue than recording a non-specific name for a non-member spouse.

Personally, I don't think it is a big deal, to be honest. We have a fairly small YSA. Everyone knows each other. This member showing up on the YSA list is certainly not creating any issues.

And, sure, I appreciate the advice, but I have to admit that it frustrates me a little bit when I'm like "I called the GSC and this is what they told me to do" and then the response back here is basically "Well, maybe they were wrong."

Again, if the Church wants this done, then they should provide an interface to do it. I'd be happy to mark her as married without having to add the record if that were possible.

jgoggan wrote: Sat Jul 22, 2023 4:39 pm And, sure, I appreciate the advice, but I have to admit that it frustrates me a little bit when I'm like "I called the GSC and this is what they told me to do" and then the response back here is basically "Well, maybe they were wrong."

Part of the reason to refer you to GSD is that they have more options. There was hope they'd be able to record the marriage without resorting to name trickery. But that's not what happened.

Their response may have been based on the problem they heard "how do I fix this audit". People don't always take the bigger picture.

It's been many years since I've called on membership issues, but the networking side has led me astray. We won't talk about the bad advice I've gotten from FHC support.

While it's nice that your unit is on top of your YSA, there may be a time when she moves into a larger ward trying to reactivate their YSA/SA. It might be worth a follow up email to support asking if there a way to deal with this issue. One problem with a phone call is it tends to put people on the spot to come up with an answer right away rather then research it.

GSD can and does email people back if they don't know the answer, or in some cases they will even call you back. That has been my experience.

russellhltn wrote: Fri Jul 21, 2023 12:04 pm I wouldn't rule out the possibility that what I'm suggesting is the approved method, but the employee you talked to didn't know it. You might want to follow up up with an email or a special request on that record to see what they say. The problem with a phone call is it puts pressure on to come up with an answer immediately. A email allows time to consult and research.

So, just to follow up on this. Just to satisfy your curiosity, I contacted via email so that they'd really have some time to think about it. I actually, for whatever reason, got two responses to my question, about two weeks apart. The first one said this:

Thank you for your email. We were able to look into your request and we suggest to re-submit a membership audit and not select their name or marriage and that should resolve the issue. Thank you.

So, basically, exactly what was said on the phone -- to just run it through again with a new audit and NOT mark them as married so that it goes away.

The more recent reply that I got weeks later (today actually) so that they REALLY had some time to think about it:

If the member will not provide the information regarding her marriage, she will remain an audit exception. It is up to you if you want to run a new audit and mark her as not married, or leave her as an audit exception.

So, pretty much the same thing once again -- either leave it as an exception with no resolution -- or run a new audit to clear out the exception.

They didn't really go with what you had been recommending -- even when they answered the same question 3 different times and even when 2 of them where via email so that they had lots of time to think about it as you requested. Whether or not you have the correct "Approved method", but 3 different official people are telling me otherwise is anyone's guess...

Interesting. Thanks for the the follow-up.