Membership of Children of Divorced Parents

When the parents are divorced, what is Church Policy on where the records of the children should be kept? Please give a reference to the actual policy, I haven't been able to find it. Should they be in the ward of the legal custodial parent? If so, is there a way to prevent the non-custodial parent from having the records transferred to his/her ward? Thanks in advance for anyone's help.

kimballball wrote:When the parents are divorced, what is Church Policy on where the records of the children should be kept? Please give a reference to the actual policy, I haven't been able to find it. Should they be in the ward of the legal custodial parent? If so, is there a way to prevent the non-custodial parent from having the records transferred to his/her ward? Thanks in advance for anyone's help.

The policy is very simple: "Membership records should be kept in the ward where a member lives" (MLS Software Manual, p. A-5). So assuming the children live with the custodial parent (which should be the case, if "custodial" means what it means), the records should be with the custodial parent.

As for the non-custodial parent requesting records, no regular member can request records. Only a clerk or bishopric member can request records, and such a request should be approved by the bishop. The bishop of that ward should, of course, only be requesting the records of the children if they actually live in his ward. Otherwise, he would deny any request to move the records into his ward.

There are mechanisms for a bishop to put a hold (called a Move restriction) on records so that they can't be moved without his permission, but that seems a bit heavy-handed. I would think that the two bishops can talk and reach an agreement as to where the records reside and that would be the end of it.

In the past when we were confronted with a situation where there was joint physical custody and the children attended in our ward half of the time even though the other parent had legal custody, we created out of unit records for the children. This is why I really wish there was some kind of synchronizing of out of unit records so that ordinances would get updated.

Thank you for your help with this situation.

We have a slightly different situation in our ward. We have a set of divorced parents who both live in our ward boundaries, although in different residences. They share custody of their children with each parent taking the children for certain days of the week. Both parents even typically sit on the same bench with the children at church. In that case, should we just leave it up to the parents to decide and tell us under which "head of household" the children should be placed for MLS purposes?

nomoser wrote:In that case, should we just leave it up to the parents to decide and tell us under which "head of household" the children should be placed for MLS purposes?

I can't think of any other viable options. Sounds like a plan to me.

We have a situation similar to that, though the divorced parents are not on such amicable terms. In our case, the children reside with their Mother's record, even though they share 50/50 custody (time-wise - I don't know any other legal details) and the Mother has taken her maiden name back.

This thread is a little old, so can I revive it just to see if anyone has a new info?

I have a divorced couple in the Ward, with kids. All family members live in our Ward. Parents have joint custody and shared parenting time.

Kids currently are on mom's records. Dad is not happy about this. He would like them to be on his records.

The only thing I can gather here is that the church doesn't have a policy to cover this. Kids are supposed to be with the custodial parent and in the Ward where they live. But that doesn't answer the "joint" custody question where the kids love with both back and forth.

Searching the handbook and online I'm just not seeing an answer for this. Anyone have any insight?

I don't know of any policy that will resolve the question about where the records should reside for joint custody when the parents aren't in agreement.

But you can now create out-of-unit records for the child quite easily in LCR. As a finance clerk I can't access that part of LCR so I can't give you specific steps but it shouldn't be too hard to find.

This thread also has some information about using out-of-unit records in this situation.

jayriggity wrote:Kids currently are on mom's records. Dad is not happy about this. He would like them to be on his records.

Assuming the children haven't been adopted by a new step-dad, the children should be showing on both parent's records - but that's only visible to the parents if they review their IOS. But I'm guessing that's not what you're talking about.

I assume you're talking about in his household - which appears in LDS Tools and the ward directory. You can try to create out-of-unit records, but that's for when the parents are in different wards. I don't know as you can do that when both parents are in the same ward.

eblood66 wrote:But you can now create out-of-unit records for the child quite easily in LCR.

jayriggity's situation has both parents living in the same ward – so out-of-unit records wouldn't apply in this case. However, for parents who live in two different wards, this is a good option. Even then, one ward has to be responsible for the "real" records, which dictates which bishop is responsible for them, where they receive home teachers, where they will receive interviews, ordinances, and callings, etc.

sbradshaw wrote:

eblood66 wrote:But you can now create out-of-unit records for the child quite easily in LCR.

jayriggity's situation has both parents living in the same ward – so out-of-unit records wouldn't apply in this case.

Oops. I missed that detail.

I'm afraid there probably isn't anything that can be done about this one except maybe to periodically switch the children from one household to the other. But that probably won't be satisfactory to anyone.

eblood66 wrote:But that probably won't be satisfactory to anyone.

Along those lines, you could set the privacy settings for the children to "Leadership only" so that almost no one can see the children.