What happens to reserved temple names when a member dies?

You can find the answer in the Help Centre (make sure you are signed in first if you are using FamilySearch.org).  I search for Deceased Member and get 2 helpful knowledge documents (remember you can search just by the number):

1.  1025085 which is from A User’s Guide to the New FamilySearch Website (20 February 2012)  (LDS Version) Handling Ordinances That Were Reserved by a Member Who Is Now Deceased or Incapacitated

If a Church member reserved ordinances and then dies or cannot complete the ordinances for other reasons, those ordinances remain in their current state unless someone else has the cards and finishes the ordinances. If cards were never printed or if the cards have been lost, you need to work with a system administrator to see what can be done.

Currently, system administrators cannot change all of a deceased member’s ordinance reservations at once. Therefore, please limit your request to ten individuals at a time. Your request can include more individuals if they are in the same family.

Please send the following information to support@familysearch.org:

The person identifier of the individual whose ordinances need to be unreserved.

The name and death date of the deceased individual who reserved the ordinances.

Your relationship to the individual who reserved the ordinances.

Your full name.

Your birth date.

Your helper access number (which you can find in your user profile).

If the individual who originally reserved the ordinances is not deceased but is no longer able to print cards or perform temple work, please explain the circumstances.

This knowledge document then has links to other related topics

2.  103836  How long does it take Church membership to transfer deceased Church members’ information to the new FamilySearch?

The Church Membership Department has to be notified of the deceased member’s death date.  The time period for Church membership to transfer a deceased Church member’s information to the new FamilySearch may take up to a year from the date the Church Membership Department receives the information.

Personal comment: when a friend passed away and I was helping the family retrieve all the names from his reserve list, the ward clerk sent in the notice of death and within days the account was closed!

Remember that previously printed temple cards remain valid.

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You Were Born for This – Family History and Youth

Recently we were blessed to be invited by a stake to give a presentation on FH and Youth.  The presentation was centred on Elder Bednar’s talk at the October 2011 General Conference. Here is our handout.

1. Putting things in context

• Remember the blessing of having a Prophet and Apostles
• Always talk and counsel with Stake and Ward Leaders

2.  Goals

• To provide a list of practical suggestions to involve youth in Family History
• End Result – To increase the participation of Youth in Family History

3.  We have been asked to focus on Youth and Family History.  Why FH for Youth? How? The Obvious?  Follow the program. Keep doing what do we do now in the YW and YM programs.  Review the program after going through Elder Bednar’s talk.

4.  Talk: The Hearts of the Children Shall Turn – Elder David A Bednar, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles , October 2011 General Conference, Saturday Afternoon Session – key resource – answers key questions invites youth to participate in FH and how this can best be accomplished:

5.  Why do Family History?

6.  What are Youth to do?

• Learn about and experience the spirit of Elijah
• Study, search out your ancestors
• Prepare to perform proxy baptisms
• Help other people identify their family histories

7.  A Promise . . . What is promised?

• Your hearts shall turn to the fathers.
• The promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will be implanted in your hearts.
• Your patriarchal blessing, with its declaration of lineage, will link you to these fathers and be more meaningful to you.
• Your love and gratitude for your ancestors will increase.
• Your testimony of and conversion to the Savior will become deep and abiding.
• I promise you will be protected against the intensifying influence of the adversary.
• You will be safeguarded in your youth and throughout your lives.

8.  Role of Parents and Leaders

• Help them learn about and experience the Spirit of Elijah
• do not overly program this endeavor
• or provide too much detailed information or training

9.  A further word of caution

• “First, the youth won’t need technology or computer lessons, in fact, they could be called as consultants to teach new.familysearch.org after just a few minutes using it. They get it.
• Second, you will lose them if you try to teach them to become genealogists.
• Get them to the temple with their own names,
• Set them up to help and serve others, and you will be successful.
• Teach them how to correctly document jurisdictional place names, or to correctly enter sources and citations and you will lose them.
• They are a wonderful resource and can help and be blessed in so many ways.” (Jim Greene, FamilySearch)

10.  What should youth do?

• Invite to Explore
• Experiment
• Learn for themselves
• Use FH for Youth website
• Be learners who act
• and receive additional light and knowledge by the power of the Holy Ghost
• Not merely passive students

11.  You will stand all amazed

• Youth will quickly learn how to effectively use resources
• Youth can help those uncomfortable with or intimidated by technology or unfamiliar with FamilySearch
• More time for FH and Temple service means less time doing . . . . .

12.  So what should we do?

• Using the Youth and FH website – give them the opportunity to look at the videos and try some of the activities
• Learning about their ancestors for at least 4 generations – not just a pedigree chart – but who are they? Gather, organize pictures
• Take their own family names to the Temple for baptism
• Help by Indexing
• Help friends learn about their ancestors
• Ask question – is the information on new.familysearch.org accurate for my ancestors
• Can we get it corrected?  – yes we can!
• Help ward members – could be a service project – someone with no computer and or no computer skills – someone needing someone else’s eyes and hands
• Digitizing photos and documents
• Help the FH Centre – are there youth who could serve a shift a week?  are there youth who could provide some of the technical support?
• Are there youth who could teach all or part of the SS FH course?
• FH and Missionary work – could youth go with full-time missionaries to help with FH questions?
• How are we preparing youth to be full-time missionaries?  What do they need to know about FH to be ready to enter a MTC?
• when youth are assigned to talk in sacrament meeting, ask them to learn about an ancestor who embodied the gospel principle they are talking about, and then share what they learned

13.  Find Short Active High Success Activities

• Explore the Family History for Youth website -  lds.org/fhy
• Use the 5 Minute Genealogy videos and activities – available at FamilySearch.org (remember these can be downloaded and used offline)
• Create a fan chart at Createfan.com – what still needs to be done on my tree?
• Indexing – always!  – and now available on the ipad/iphone/ipod – app called Indexing – and android devices
• Watch for the 20 Minute Genealogist – at
  https://twenty.byu.edu
  / – not available yet (as of 10Feb)

14.  Internet access in church buildings

• Can 35 youth all come to the FHCentre and use each use a computer?  Probably not.  Plan for manageable groups
• Plan the use of the bandwidth we have available
• How many people can access the Internet simultaneously in my building?  If you need to know more ask your Stake Technology Specialist – but you will quickly find out if the number is 10 or 15 or 20 or ?
• Download videos like the 5 Minute Genealogy series – and then use it offline

15  Challenges/goals and competitions

• # of names indexed
• number of family names taken to the temple – is this an appropriate competition?
• caution – re duration of challenges – short repeated challenges may be more effective than single long events
• can competition on sacred things something become inappropriate?  What spirit is being shared?
• How about a competition to see how many people you can teach to do indexing – even a neighbour or someone who doesn’t yet belong to the church

16.  Some of these suggestions will take some planning – and involve choices – and leadership decisions – discuss then with your Bishop and Stake President in Councils as appropriate -  you can’t do all of them – prayerfully select

17.  Some Resources:

• Elder Bednar talk “The Hearts of the Children Shall Turn “at October 2011 General  Conference  (Saturday afternoon session)
• FH for youth website lds.org/fhy – Experiences are frequently being added.  Be alert for additions
• Indexing at
  https://www.familysearch.org/volunteer/indexing
  
• 5 Minute Genealogy video series at FamilySearch.org/learn in research courses – many great resources in this area
• 
  https://createfan.com
  / – makes a fan chart from data at new.familysearch.org
• Watch for the 20 Minute Genealogist – at
  https://twenty.byu.edu
  / – not available yet (as of 13 March but you can register for the beta)

• video at <
  http://lds.org/service/serving-in-the-church/temple-and-family-history/leader-resources/individual-stories-and-topics?lang=eng#strengthen-youth
  >  6 min
• articles at the Research wiki at familysearch.org – particularly 3 articles – 1. FH Activities for Youth, 2. Involve Children and Youth in FH, 3. FH Activities for Children 12 – ?

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1. Genealogy Conference in Alberta and 2. Subscribing to weekly articles

What’s happening? First no regular article on Sunday morning (we posted it by accident 2 days early) and now an article on Sunday afternoon!

1.  Genealogy Conference in Alberta.

We have been asked to share the following information with you:

“Dick Eastman is coming to Red Deer as one of three keynote guest speakers at a Genealogical Conference April 13 and 14. There are 14 speakers in all speaking on a wide variety of genealogical subjects from begining to advanced topics. Great opportunity to hear “big” names in the genealogy world.”

Registration and Information are online at:  
http://rdgensoc.ab.ca/conference/

2.  Subscribing to weekly articles by email

We are always pleased to hear feedback about our weekly articles.  We are always saddened when someone tells us that the weekly article did not arrive.

We have also heard of people who subscribed to receive the article by email and then the articles mysteriously stopped coming.  We leave the management of the email list entirely to the website.   The website has we notice updated some of their management tools.  Sometimes the security settings on your computer or email program get changed or updated.  Check your spam/junk email box. If you have an option to unblock specific email addresses, try allowing   *@wordpress.com (all emails from the domain) and/or no-reply@wordpress.com addresses.

If you want to receive the articles weekly and they for any reason stop then please go to the website and click on the link Email Subscription (lower right on webpage) and put in your email address again.  Please invite anyone you think would be interested to subscribe.  We worry that some FH Consultants do not know about the weekly articles.

Of course you can always go to the website to read the article and look at the archive of past articles.  Thank you for your encouragement and support.  Comments, articles and suggested topics for articles are welcome.

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Teaching Members to Understand and Follow Policies for Submitting Names

Note:  apologies for the duplicate article to those of you who subscribe by email.  We have had a computer operator error! – i.e. Peter pressed the wrong key, sent out the article by email, but didn’t post it to the website! – it’s an important article anyway which is only emphasized by sending it out twice!

Much has been reported in the media regarding baptism for the dead in recent weeks.   This is a good time for us to review and teach people to understand and follow policies regarding submission of names to the temple

There have been reports of members of the church not following temple policies and entering names of deceased holocaust victims or famous people to whom they are not related.  People rightfully have been offended.  We should be following our own temple policies.

We have also become aware of other members ignoring temple policies and taking names of unrelated persons to the temple.

On 29 February the First Presidency sent a letter to every unit of the church asking us to follow temple policies. The letter asks members to seek assistance from their Family History Consultant – so be prepared. On 9 March you should have received a letter from the FH Dept to Family History Consultants, Family History Center Directors, and Staff (if you did not receive this letter then go to
https://www.familysearch.org/consultant/
and register).

Please help members to understand and follow the direction of the First Presidency.

Here are some useful links:

1. There are 2 articles in the Church News and Events section at lds,org: 
   http://www.lds.org/church/news/church-asks-members-to-understand-policies?lang=eng
   and
   http://www.lds.org/church/news/names-submitted-for-temple-ordinances?lang=eng
   – the second link is the text of the First Presidency letter
2. Church News 1 March 2012 – this article includes comments by Dennis C. Brimhall, the new managing director of the Church’s Family History Department –
   http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/62066/Family-history—Church-asks-members-to-understand-policies.html# 
   
3. CNN offers an interesting article on the topic from the public perspective (link shared with me by a good friend): 
   http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/09/mormons-crack-down-on-proxy-baptisms-whistleblowers-access-blocked/?hpt=hp_t3
   

No doubt you will find many other references.  There was a segment of the CBC radio  program “The Current” devoted to Baptism for the Dead.

People asking about our beliefs is a good thing.  Helping people understand our beliefs is wonderful.

You might want to read the following article from Mormon.org under the menu Values: 
http://mormon.org/family-history/
The first article is entitled “Why Family History is Important.”

Where can you read about temple policies other than the letter from the First Presidency? We would suggest that you use page 30 of the Member’s Guide to Temple and Family History Work (bearing in mind the one change from 95 to 110 years when needing permission from the nearest living relative).  You can also use the Tutorials and Guides from the Help panel or Learn How to use FamilySearch from the new FamilySearch home page.  A search in the Help Centre for Temple Policies will take you to the Users Guide for nFS.  If we need more information the church will provide it for us.

Here is a quote from page 30 of the Member’s Guide :

“Do not submit the names of persons who are not related to you, including names of famous people or names gathered from unapproved extraction projects, such as victims of the Jewish Holocaust.”

May we strongly suggest that you do not become the judge of what is appropriate to submit.  If asked a question about submission policy then quote the relevant section.  Avoid contention or debate.  If pressed further then suggest the person talk to their priesthood leader.

When we started writing this article a few weeks ago the objective was to make sure everyone was aware that the policy for obtaining permission to perform ordinances has changed from 95 years to 110 years - this is the only change in temple policy of which we are aware.  Here is the policy (remember to sign in before accessing knowledge documents):

Knowledge Document ID 113599

“The policy for obtaining permission to perform ordinances has changed from 95 years to 110 years

At the RootsTech 2012 conference, it was announced that the 95 year rule relating to getting permission before doing living ordinances is changing.

The new policy is as follows:

Before doing ordinances for a deceased person born in the last 110 years, please remember that close relatives may not want the ordinances performed, or they may want to do the ordinances themselves.

You may do ordinances for your own deceased spouse, child, parent, or sibling, but please consider the wishes of other close living relatives, especially a living spouse.

If you are not a spouse, child, parent, or sibling of the deceased, please obtain permission from the closest living relative before doing the ordinances. The closest living relatives are, in this order: an undivorced spouse (the spouse to whom the individual was married when he or she died), an adult child, a parent, or a brother or sister.

Verbal approval is acceptable. Family members should work together to determine when the ordinances will be done and who will do them.

For information on what to do with family ordinance cards that were printed by mistake, see 1008370.”

Thank you for all that you do to help people understand how to do Temple and Family History work.

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Making a Fan Chart from nFS for Someone Else and one other important item

Many of us have been enjoying our 9 generation fan charts based on data from nFS (using createfan.com).   We sometimes get asked, can we make a fan chart for someone in our ward or family?  Thanks to Charles Schmalz, the Director of the Ogden FH Center here are the instructions to make a fan chart for someone else (from his March 2012 Newsletter):

“To print a chart stating with yourself:

1. Go to
https://createfan.com

2. Click Login

3. Type in nFS Username and Password

4. Click Sign In

5. Click Create

6.  Open or Save the resultant Fan Chart (PDF format) Starting with You (9 generations)

To view other Fan Charts starting with other PID Numbers

1. Click on TreeSeek.com hyperlink – you MUST complete steps 1-6 above before going to TreeSeek.com

2. Click on Start Now!

3. Click on Login underneath the tree

4. Type in nFS Username and Password

5. Click on Create Tree if you wish to enter another Person ID (PID) as shown below. Your results are stored to the website server.

6. Enter Person PID number in the box you desire to be the start of Ancestor Fan Chart

7. Click Create data set button and wait patiently for process to complete

8. Click the Starting Person For the fan chart you desire as directed from

the following menu given below: Just click the pull-down above, make your

selection, and then do the next step below.

9. Click Create Chart button

10. Open or Save the resultant Fan Chart (PDF format) Starting with input PID (9

generations)

NOTE: When you complete the above process once, you only need to return to the TreeSeek.com website for additional charts.”

Wouldn’t it be nice to print a large colour fan chart?  Bill reminds us that if you have Adobe Reader v 10 you can print as tiles – and then put the tiles together.

Our American colleagues always tell us about being able to get large charts printed at places like Kinkos (didn’t they get bought out by FedEx?) or services like genealogycharts.org and generationmaps.com/familychartist .  Shipping of the charts to Canada might be prohibitive (? has any tried it?).  Where in Canada can we get large charts printed? Staples will print a 24″ by 36″ colour chart for $29.99 from a pdf file.  You can upload the file to their website and pick the print up at the store.  I tried Costco but they only print jpg and tiff files and not pdf. Does anyone know where you can get a large colour chart printed in Canada?

How to become a FamilySearch Missionary 

Have you noticed that there are some delays in getting your telephone calls to FamilySearch Support answered?  There is a shortage of missionaries!  Please consider helping or look for people you know and gently persuade them to help.  You can serve from home!  15 or more hours a week.  This knowledge document gives the details:

Document ID: 100134

Part-Time Church-Service Missionaries Needed

FamilySearch Patron Services Division

Interested in FamilySearch?

Church-service missionaries help provide e-mail and phone support for users of FamilySearch websites and FamilySearch computer programs by answering questions about family history products, programs, and services. Missionaries will receive training and can then offer e-mail and phone support from their own homes.

Availability: Missionaries are expected to serve a minimum of 15 hours per week for at least a year. Days and times for actual service are scheduled with a Mission Leader once the first eight weeks of training have been completed.

Requirements:

• Contact Elder Whiting before talking to your local priesthood leaders–there are some technical requirements that must be met before you can serve.
• Minimum requirements for a home computer: 1.0 GB RAM, Pentium 4 processor, Windows XP, and a high-speed (broadband, DSL, or cable) Internet connection. When you contact us we can help you determine if your computer will be suitable for the services you will be providing. Click here to see a more detailed list of computer system requirements.
• Church-service missionaries are called by their stake president and set apart by their bishop.

Skills: Missionaries should have a good understanding of computers, along with good troubleshooting and communication skills. It is helpful if they have experience in one or more FamilySearch areas including Historical Records, Indexing, FamilySearch Centers, Research and new FamilySearch. Previous experience as a ward family history consultant, as a family history center director or staff member, or as an indexing program director or worker is also very helpful.

For more information, contact:

Elder Whiting, Coordinator
FamilySearch Field Missionaries
Toll Free: 1-800-453-3860 ext. 20850
E-mail: WhitingJ@familysearch.org

To obtain additional information about becoming FamilySearch Missionary:

1. Go to
   http://www.lds.org/
   .
2. Click Menu.
3. Click Missionary Service.
4. Under Church-Service Mission Opportunities click Current Opportunities in the middle column.
5. Click View “At Home” Service Opportunities.
6. Click FamilySearch Missionary (#1321)
7. Click Request Information
8. Enter your name and email address and then click Submit Information

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