Family History Report

[tcprado]

One of my assignments in the stake high councilor is temple & family history.

I would like a current report and a report of previous months for all ward in my stake with the number of members submitting names to the temple, number of ordinances submitted and number of ldsaccounts created.

Pretty much like the one attached, but i would like to be able to get the graphs in this report for each ward.

At least I would like to be able to get these reports myself and evaluate the result of stake and ward initiatives for different months, without having to bug and beg anyone.

[jdlessley]

I would like a current report and a report of previous months for all ward in my stake with ... number of ldsaccounts created.

You will have to bug and beg for this information because the only way to get it is for the members themselves to give it to you. It is not available any other way.

[russellhltn]

the only way to get it is for the members themselves to give it to you. It is not available any other way.

I don't think that's true. But I'm not sure who has access and how they get it. The stake indexing director might be able to get it.

Edit: It looks like they can. They go to indexing.familysearch.org and log in. They should have a "Administration" tab. Under that is reports. The question is if this report is there.

I'd suggest having them run off a PDF once and month and forwarding it.

[sbradshaw]

Only indexing statistics are included at indexing.familysearch.org, unfortunately – no temple name submission statistics.

[russellhltn]

Well, the report in the OP came from FamilySearch. And we know that information is gathered for the quarterly report. So the question is how is it obtained?

[aebrown]

I would like a current report and a report of previous months for all ward in my stake with the number of members submitting names to the temple, number of ordinances submitted and number of ldsaccounts created.

I'll begin with two quick comments:

• As jdlessley correctly noted, there is no way to get a report on LDS Accounts created. But that's not part of the report you attached, so that's a separate discussion anyway.
• I don't know why indexing entered this discussion; it's also not part of the report discussed in the original post.

As for the actual report under discussion, I know quite a bit about it. You can see in its header that it is generated by "FHD Business Intelligence". That is a team in the Family History Department that is tasked with creating a wide range of reports regarding family history activities of members (and nonmembers). Many of those reports are used internally by various Church departments, and some are distributed beyond those departments.

This "Priesthood Key Indicator Report" is generated each month for every stake in the Church. It is made available to area family history directors for the stakes they are responsible for. I know that the stake I live in periodically (less often than monthly) receives those reports from our area family history directors; they send them to the stake presidency counselor over family history work. But I doubt that this exact pattern is followed in every area; it would be up to the discretion of the area family history directors.

I know that the report is also generated at the ward level, but I have no information about how (or even if) it might be distributed. Ward and stake level reports are available to Family History Department employees to use as part of a program where employees act as ambassadors to their wards and stakes. But if you don't happen to have a FHD employee in your ward or stake, that avenue is not available to you.

So for the questions in the original post, I would say you could:

• Work through channels to ask your area family history director if he/she could make the ward level reports available to you; or
• Gather the ward data each month from the stake report you receive, store it in a spreadsheet, and generate your own graphs from the historical data. This last option is clearly more work, and the stake report doesn't contain all the information for each ward that is available on the ward report (such as distinguishing between adults and youth). But if you can't get the actual ward reports, this might be your only option.

[tcprado]

As for the actual report under discussion, I know quite a bit about it. You can see in its header that it is generated by "FHD Business Intelligence". That is a team in the Family History Department that is tasked with creating a wide range of reports regarding family history activities of members (and nonmembers). Many of those reports are used internally by various Church departments, and some are distributed beyond those departments.

This "Priesthood Key Indicator Report" is generated each month for every stake in the Church. It is made available to area family history directors for the stakes they are responsible for. I know that the stake I live in periodically (less often than monthly) receives those reports from our area family history directors; they send them to the stake presidency counselor over family history work. But I doubt that this exact pattern is followed in every area; it would be up to the discretion of the area family history directors.

I know that the report is also generated at the ward level, but I have no information about how (or even if) it might be distributed. Ward and stake level reports are available to Family History Department employees to use as part of a program where employees act as ambassadors to their wards and stakes. But if you don't happen to have a FHD employee in your ward or stake, that avenue is not available to you.

aebrown, thank you very much. The thing is, the person assigned to give these reports doesn't is a family history missionary and does not know exactly how to generate them. He gets it from someone else and they don't understand why I would want these reports. I'm the stake high councilor assigned to work with temple and family history and I need to follow up on stake and ward efforts.
As I can see the chain this report should take to get to me is completely loose. Someone generates it and then sends it to the family history missionary assigned to work with our stake. He doesn't know what exactly to do with it and it doesn't get to my stake leadership and thus, doesn't reach me. I was able to get the attached report from someone in area administration office who told me the missionary was going to work with me to get me these reports, but when contacted he doesn't know how to get them and he was sure he should not send it to me directly nor why would I want it. It's hectic. Our Family History Center Director was happily surprised that such report existed, so I can't quite go that way either. Furthermore I'm supposed to oversee the Family History Center Director and Assistant Directors' work while I myself had no idea they had access to such reports.

I'm looking into it. For now, anyother help is very much appreciated.

[tcprado]

I was able to get onde further report for the Month of January. I'm looking into getting past reports now. I think we'll be able to get them from the family history missionary, he was able to get the January report alright.
Many thanks!

[Swift]

I just saw this report recently also. I have a question about the meaning of the "submitting" indicator. Does it indicate the number of members who added names to family search, or does it indicate the number of members who reserved an ordinance, or does it indicate the number of names in family search who had at least one ordinance reserved for them by a member of your stake?

This may seem like a small issue, but it is vitally important to understand what the data are really saying before conclusions are drawn from it.

For instance, the 1st-4th Gen ancestors in family tree percentage is easily misunderstood. It does not mean the number of members in the stake with all of their 4 generations entered in family search, but rather how many of the adult members of the stake, their parents, grandparents and great grandparents are entered into family search. There is a total of 15 possible names per member of the stake, and the percentage is how many of those names are entered.


Lastly, I recognize that this might not be the place to ask my question, but frankly, there is nowhere else I know of that has a chance to answer my question. Thanks in advance.

[sbradshaw]

I just saw this report recently also. I have a question about the meaning of the "submitting" indicator. Does it indicate the number of members who added names to family search, or does it indicate the number of members who reserved an ordinance, or does it indicate the number of names in family search who had at least one ordinance reserved for them by a member of your stake?

I think "submitting" means using the "Print" or "Share" menu on your reserved list, in the Temple section of FamilySearch. If I understand it correctly, this would include any of the following:
– Printing a Family Ordinance Request (FOR) for someone that you have reserved.
– Printing a Family Ordinance Card for someone that you have reserved.
– Sharing someone that you have reserved with the temple, through FamilySearch.
– Sharing someone that you have reserved with family or friends, through FamilySearch.

It presupposes that you have found a person in your tree who needs ordinances, and reserved those ordinances, but those steps by themselves do not constitute "submitting." "Number submitting" is the number of members of your unit who have submitted at least one name during the month (it doesn't matter if it was one name or several).