Moving Records of Lost Members

[robinvice]

I just received the records of a member who is the daughter of one of our ward members. The recently received records show her at his address.
This good brother has been trying to contact his daughter, but she hasn't responded in a long time (years). Clearly, she doesn't live at his address.
I contacted the Clerk and Membership Clerk of the ward that sent the record, letting them know she does not live there and asking why they sent the records to our ward. The reply stated, "A letter sent to her address came back as address unknown. Rather than put her in the lost member file, as we have no other means to locate her, we found her dad's address, in your ward, and thought that you could find out from him where she lives."
I've dealt with searching for lost members fairly extensively in a past calling, but if I couldn't find the member, ultimately their records were sent to the Address Unknown Department (AUD) at church headquarters. There was an 8 or 9 step process to follow, and if those steps didn't yield results, then the bishop would sign-off on moving the records to the AUD. That was a few years ago, so I don't know if policies have changed.
Can someone point me to current policies?

Any advice on how to proceed with this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Br. Vice

[jdlessley]

The unit that moved the member record to your unit did not follow the correct procedure. They should not have moved the record unless the address was known. They could have contacted you using the information available to them in CDOL to ask you to contact the father on your behalf to inquire about her known address. But that is not required, as I was told by GSD support.

The process for finding lost members has changed over the past few years. The old 9 steps described have been incorporated into the new process. The new 4 steps are listed at the top of the Finding Lost Members list. That list is used to manage the finding.

General Handbook, 33.6.4, outlines the new process in paragraphs 2 thru 4. The step a clerk takes to move the record to the Finding Lost Members list is to use the Move Records Out tool and in step 3 mark the question, "Is the new address known?", as No. The system will move the record to the Finding Lost Members list. That list is now available in LCR > Reports to the Elders Quorum and Relief Society leaders as well as ward council members.

The finding of lost members is part of the ministering program and is managed primarily by the EQ and RS leaders. Clerks use LCR to move the records. The first move is to the Finding Lost Members list. Using the 4 steps at the top of the list are used to locate the member. There is a hidden menu, three ellipsis icon, to the right of the list page for each member. That menu includes four items for the ward clerk(View Member Information, Move to Other Unit, Member Found In My Unit, Cannot Find Member). I believe the EQ and RS leaders do not have the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th items. Instead they notify the clerk of their search results for the clerk to take the appropriate action. The record is moved to the Address Unknown file at headquarters when the clerk clicks the Cannot Find Member option.

Now that the record is in your ward your action may be to follow the new process. If you want confirmation of your options I recommend contacting GSD support and let them know what happened.

[robinvice]

Thanks for the reply, JD Lessley.

Since we have no knowledge of her friends, and we can't conveniently visit her previous address (a hundred miles away), I'm inclined to return her records to the sending ward and point out the procedure you delineated.

Does this seem like a reasonable course of action?

Thanks,
Br. Vice

[BrianEdwards]

.....
I contacted the Clerk and Membership Clerk of the ward that sent the record, letting them know she does not live there and asking why they sent the records to our ward.
.....

Personally, I'd also send a message back to the previous ward (perhaps cc'ing the Bishop), with some nicely-phrased advice that whenever they move records in the future, each time they also take the initiative to proactively reach out to the new ward with background info. Sending records without any details is the best way to ensure a member gets lost in transition.

Obviously this specific scenario wasn't following protocol, but I personally was always troubled when we received a membership record without any kind of context (which was 95% of the time), and would send an email to the previous clerk requesting they provide as much pertinent info as they could about the member in question. And I always made an effort to reach out to the new ward when we pushed records elsewhere. IMHO this should be a part of the standard membership record transfer procedure and have submitted Feedback accordingly, but that's just my perspective.

[robinvice]

Thank you Brian Edwards. I appreciate your feedback!

[sbradshaw]

Because the member has already moved and can't be contacted, the record doesn't "belong" to either ward. It doesn't hurt to send a message to the previous ward (and probably would help them learn for future reference), but for the record itself, there's no reason to send it back to the previous ward – you can just send it to Address Unknown yourself.