Subscription services to find members

[dandshall2]

I know that this topic has been discussed over the years in various posts. But, we had Stake training last night that the Stake will be having a subscription to a service called beenverified.com. So in our efforts of trying to move records of members who moved out of the ward to the proper ward, when they do not share their new address or information with us, so instead of just sending records to SLC as lost members after trying all the steps listed on LCR, my stake added this step of sending the member's information to the Stake Assistant Clerk who will then try to locate a current address of the member with use of beenverified.com. If we cannot locate a good address for the member and the other steps in LCR were completed, then we will send to SLC.

In my previous profession that I retired from, I used a service called TLOxp. I like TLOxp and it had good information but TLOxp services are used by "Collections, Attorneys and Law Firms, Licensed Investigators, Financial Services, Insurance, Corporate Risk, Investigative Reporters, Law Enforcement, Government, Repossession Industry, and Resellers." Granted as a Ward Clerk I do not need, nor desire to know about most of the information that TLO could provide (traffic violation, arrests, court filings, etc.), but an updated address and contact information is most desirable.

I do not know if the results from beenverified.com are good or not. This is a new step step for me. Honestly if beenverified.com was a good service, I would just create my own subscription to take care of my Ward's members instead of forwarding it to the Stake. I like to be self-reliant.

Again I would like to use TLOxp, since I know that information is pretty good from but I know that a Ward Clerk does not fit into their categories of their users. Anyone wish to share their experience or thoughts?

I know that there are other sites out there that are free such as the following: Familytreenow.com, whitepages.com, TruePeopleSearch.com, Intelius, US Search, Find People Search, LinkedIn, and using social media like Facebook.

[davesudweeks]

My personal opinion only: The church has much better resources to find lost members than anyone at the stake, ward or branch level. I think the steps were set in place because many units were not making any attempt to find lost members and instead were just dumping them into the "address unknown" file. I suppose if your bishop wants to spend his limited budget funds on a subscription service, that would be his decision. If it were me, though, I would make a good-faith effort to follow all the steps and then send the record to CHQ as directed. I have had pretty good results (but not perfect) using social media and free information online.

The ward is not required to find out where the person has moved to - the ward is required to follow the steps to try to find out where they have moved to. Full time missionaries can sometimes help in a couple of those steps if their Mission President approves.

[drepouille]

I agree with davesudweeks. I had a subscription to beenverified.com years ago when it only cost $60 for six months. Then I switched to another service, and then back to beenverified.com, but the prices went up dramatically, so I dropped it again. These services are good for an initial cleanout of membership records. However, the data is not current, and will not tell you about a "recent" move for several months after the fact. It is also extremely difficult to track the current location of renters using any service. As davesudweeks said, it is often easier to track people using the information they willingly post on their social media accounts.

I also agree that budget funds should not be used for this purpose. If a clerk or member wants to use their own funds for this subscription, great. I did so because I also wanted to find relatives and friends, so my subscription helped me in several ways.

My stake suggested that all units use FamilyTreeNow, but I found the data on that service to be highly questionable, so I always steer people away from it.

[russellhltn]

My personal opinion only: The church wants us to use basic "local boots on the ground" resources. Things that are best done at the local level rather than from church headquarters:

Things like attempting to contact them via phone , email, or snail mail for the forwarding address.

Or bringing the name up in ward council and asking of anyone knows anything about them. Who were they friends with that might have more information? Talking to the neighbors, current residents of the address, etc.

If the answer was as simple as tapping away at the keyboard, SLC would be doing it.

[garystroble]

My military intelligence training and experience tells me to use any sources available to find addresses, but to cross-check and verify before drawing any final conclusions. Official sources such as, but not limited to, voter registration and court records are preferable to the many internet find a person web pages, but the Latter can save the Day for Saints who are clerks if they provide another source of the same data. The find a person web pages do not always show the current address as the current address, one must drill down into the data and look at the dates to make sure that is the case. Trust but verify official government sources as sometimes they have typos or are wrong either by design of the individual or otherwise. The answer is not simple, and does require some work, I have spend hours finding and verifying one address, but it can be done. Church HQ has no such dedicated resources etc. to do that on a larger scale. It is really no more difficult than doing family history research which also takes a lot of time if done correctly.

Lastly, don't forget about the U.S. Post Office as a source of address changes in the past 12 months, another reason to mail your ward at least once a year using official church envelopes with the proper verbiage on them to get back address corrections.