Adoptive Parents MLS & New Family Search

Discussions around using and interfacing with the Church MLS program.
russellhltn
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#11

Post by russellhltn »

Alan_Brown wrote:The membership database connection doesn't supply a relationship, and New FamilySearch assumes it is biological, because that's the best assumption given no specific information.
I suspect that's what's happening. However, I have to say that I think it's bad form for any genealogy software to assume the relationship. In my opinion, it should default to something like "unspecified".

Here's why: When doing research, unless you find the adoption papers, you really don't know. You certainly can't assume it from the census. It was not at all uncommon for a parent to die and the surviving parent to quickly remarry. My own grandmother was a double-step child from this exact process. (Father died, mother remarried, mother died, step-father remarried.)

You can't always rely on birth certificates. Birth certificates are government documents issued for government purposes and can be altered by the government to suit their processes. I think in some cases the government did issue new birth certificates for adoptions. In a very unusual case, my brother in law has a birth certificate that lists only his father. And we know it's not his biological father. It not even his adoptive father. It was the man his mother was legally married to at the time of his birth, but they lived in different locations for 3 years prior. (As I said, very unusual. :D )

I think it would help the research process of all parental entries defaulted to "unspecified". That would flag other researchers to the possibility that it might not be biological when conflicting information arises.

As for the membership records, they do not exist for the church to collect a dossier but to assist the leaders in ministering to the members unto salvation. In my time as clerk, I've seen them "reduced and simplified" to remove information that was not essential to that goal. I cannot see how knowing the parent-child relationship makes any difference. Even if it was implemented, parents would have to declare their status in order for it to be recorded accurately. As you can see by idjeeper's post, that would not go over well.

So bottom line, I personally feel this is a nFS issue and should be taken up with them.

Since MLS has no way to record this information, it would be nice to stamp out any disinformation coming from the FamilySearch side of things.
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Daryl1
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#12

Post by Daryl1 »

Thank you

Alan_Brown
RussellHltn
idjeeper

For discussing this important topic with me.
Sounds like we now have a good understanding of the issue.
From what I am hearing sounds like best cause of action is to have New Family Search allow the corrections for the living.

I will try working with NFS and see if they can fix this error and allow living parents the ability to correct and edit the relationship over at New Family Search. Even though the contributor is LDS Church Membership Records. :)

Sounds like the best fix is to leave MLS alone and to allow corrections over at New Family Search for the living.

I hope they will fix this soon.

Can this be added to Wiki?
Simply state: Allow living parents the ability to correct and edit the parent child relationship over at the New Family Search site even though the contributor is LDS Church Membership Records."

Thanks everyone.
I have nothing further to say about this. We have covered everything.

Question: Will programmers and those in authority help us with this :confused:
russellhltn
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#13

Post by russellhltn »

Mr. Techno wrote:Can this be added to Wiki?
Which article are you referring to? The only one I can think of is for MLS. FamilySearch has their own wiki managed by their own group. (And in fact has their own IT group.) It would probably be best to post the suggestion at forums.familysearch.org
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aebrown
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#14

Post by aebrown »

Mr. Techno wrote:Can this be added to Wiki?
Simply state: Allow living parents the ability to correct and edit the parent child relationship over at the New Family Search site even though the contributor is LDS Church Membership Records."
Which wiki are you talking about? The LDSTech wiki doesn't have any place that deals with New FamilySearch issues.But that's the only wiki connected to this forum. And what you're proposing above doesn't seem to have anything to do with MLS or membership records. You might want to look at the FamilySearch forum.

UPDATE: I got aced out by RussellHltn again -- and our posts are almost identical.:)
Questions that can benefit the larger community should be asked in a public forum, not a private message.
Daryl1
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#15

Post by Daryl1 »

Will try both.
FamilySearch forum.
forums.familysearch.org

This was an MLS issue originally because the contributor is LDS Church Membership records.

Let me see what can be done to allow living members to edit this error over at New Family Search.

Thanks again
russellhltn
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#16

Post by russellhltn »

Mr. Techno wrote:Will try both.
FamilySearch forum.
forums.familysearch.org
Mine was a top-level link. Alan's took you direct to the support section. Otherwise the links are the same.
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jbh001
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#17

Post by jbh001 »

RussellHltn wrote:I suspect that's what's happening. However, I have to say that I think it's bad form for any genealogy software to assume the relationship. In my opinion, it should default to something like "unspecified".
Actually, since the the handbook and MLS specify the "legal" parents are to be listed on the membership record, then the default relationship nFS should assume should be "legal" instead of "biological," "adoptive," or "unspecified."

If that line of reasoning is followed, than that puts the ball back in nFS's court to classify all parent/child relationship data received from MLS as "legal" instead of biological, adoptive, or anything else.
russellhltn
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#18

Post by russellhltn »

jbh001 wrote:Actually, since the the handbook and MLS specify the "legal" parents are to be listed on the membership record, then the default relationship nFS should assume should be "legal" instead of "biological," "adoptive," or "unspecified."
Not a bad suggestion, but since both the biological and adoptive parents were "legal" at various points in time, I'm not sure as there would be any benefit to using the "legal" label. One would hope the membership records would be the "later" record, but I'm not sure as there's any guarantee of that.

Getting too detailed in the link could cause more problems then it solves.
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Daryl1
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Maybe Someday

#19

Post by Daryl1 »

What should of happened is when Clerks enter children not born in the covenant there should of been an option in MLS for parent child relationships before Temple work happens for Biological, Adopted, Foster Child, Stepchild, or Guardian. That way Clerks would be able to follow the decree on legal adoption paperwork more accurately. This is a law of the land issue.

Than when members go to the Temple the Temple can then update records to what ever the relationship is for example sealed to parent date and a place for New Family Search to pick up the Adopted/Sealed, Stepchild/Sealed information etc...

I know this is a minority group in the Church so programmers did not put this to the top of list early on to get corrected. Maybe someday this will be resolved but most likely this will now take the First Presidency implement correction.

This is a serious issue for some and a very tender issue for others.

Currently MLS & New Family Search do not show parent child relationships correctly for the living. Always only defaults to Biological.

Could be that the Church see's adopted families as go to temple, then everything is wiped away, now family is a unit.:D Yes this is good, members are excited now they are an eternal family but do children and parents somehow then become biological:confused: This is what some have been asking when members see biological listed for child parent relationships.

Hopefully someday the programmers will update both MLS, New Family Search, and Temple to all work together for these minority members who adopt or have other relationships other then biological. I know this is no small thing to fix now.

I am not going to speak about this any more.

Thank you everyone for your help in this forum.
russellhltn
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#20

Post by russellhltn »

Mr. Techno wrote:What should of happened is when Clerks enter children not born in the covenant there should of been an option in MLS for parent child relationships before Temple work happens for Biological, Adopted, Foster Child, Stepchild, or Guardian. That way Clerks would be able to follow the decree on legal adoption paperwork more accurately. This is a law of the land issue.
(Emphasis added)

How so? Certain fields such as name and marital status should match the legal record, but I'm not aware of any case where the church record is a legal record, nor any legal requirement that the church acknowledge the nature of the parent/child relationship.

I thought we had convinced you of a different viewpoint. What happened that it changed back?
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