Last week I discussed Temple Work for the Mentally Disabled, and this week I want to ask what to do when you come across a family member that has been excommunicated. What do you do? Do you need special permission? If the person was born more than 110 years ago, do you just do it? If the person died more than a year ago and you are a close family member, do you simply do it yourself? If you knew them, does their opinion matter? If you didn’t know them, does not knowing make it easier to just do it?
I note that Mormon Heretic’s post mentioned that at one time there were “Fears that their own deceased progenitors might not accept the gospel in the afterlife,” but Church president Lorenzo Snow stated that “very, very few of those who die without the Gospel will reject it on the other side of the veil.” If so, is it safe to assume that an excommunicated family member will probably accept the ordinances done on their behalf? Is there official church guidance on this issue? If the church requires special permission, do you just do it anyway and bypass the extra paperwork because of Snow’s guidance?
Wheat & Tares 
There is a process for restoring blessings to the dead who were excommunicated while living. If you have on of these persons in your ancestral line, please talk to your stake president.
As of a couple years ago, you still needed to get First Presidency approval to do temple work for deceased excommunicated members (and any individuals who requested to have their names removed from church records). Not sure how they’d be able to track it if you created a new record for them on Family Tree and did the temple work as if for a random individual who’d never been a member of the church, but the minute that new record gets merged with the original record that has the disciplinary action attached, I’m sure a major red flag goes up. If you want to get official “blessings restored” status, I think you need to jump through the hoops. (My grandpa did this back mid-century for a pioneer ancestor who’d been exed. It was definitely a process.)
First Presidency approval, like Mary Ann said. People who circumvent the process by creating new entries, or who do temple work for people born within 110 years without the approval of their closest relatives are (I can say since I’m anonymous)the bottom feeders of the genealogy world. It shows a lack of understanding about temple work and the keys of the sealing power. It shows a lack of respect for the most sacred family bonds.
And lest you think I speak in hyperbole, just one example: I’ve gone the rounds with someone who claimed that she had more right as the wife of a second cousin, once removed, to do a sealing, than the man’s own daughter.
Do it right, or not at all.
If you need help doing it right, watch the tutorials in the FamilySearch help center, and if you have sensitive questions (excommunication, etc.) be aware that your local consultants or the FamilySearch missionaries may not know the answer, even if they pretend that they do. Even if you get the answer you think you want, you may need to request that the question be escalated to someone with seniority at FamilySearch, or someone who can provide an actual, official, recent written church policy.
There is no data of any kind in the electronic record at Family Search, publicly visible or behind the scenes, to raise a red flag of any kind anywhere should someone clear a name of an excommunicated person for temple work. In a few cases of notorious persons for whom work has been done, or attempted, repeatedly by people without authorization, a record has closed to changes or clearances, but those are not common: don’t try to seal Adolf Hitler to Eva Braun, okay? I am too cynical to believe that anybody does enough research to know that a relative was excommunicated, because virtually all temple work is cleared by novices who don’t know even to search for duplicate records, but only snag a name already in Family Search about whom they know nothing.
It’s the bishop, not stake president, whom you should ask for information should you suspect an excommunication. He has access to some answers in Handbook 1 and can contact Family Search if some situation is too tangled for him to advise.
I’ve heard stories from 2 different people recently. In both cases, the person asked to have their names taken off the rolls of the church. In one case, the family said they respected their decision, and wouldn’t attempt to have the temple work done. But what happens in 100 years (as Also Needs a Screen Name mentioned) when some other family member wonders why there is no record in FamilySearch and simply creates the name and does the temple work, oblivious to the person’s wishes in life? Of course the work will proceed, and as Lorenzo Snow said “very, very few of those who die without the Gospel will reject it on the other side of the veil.” Or at least that’s what we’re led to believe.
On the other hand, the other family felt the person had repented in the next life (how? I don’t know) and wanted the work to be done and submitted the temple work without a hitch.
It’s so easy to create a record (which is why there are so many duplicates), and not everyone knows a person’s wishes, why go through a First Presidency approval process when most people simply aren’t going to know a person’s wishes. It’s the rare case, IMO, that one would learn about the excommunication anyway. And if the work was done, do you go back and say “Oops. First Presidency, can you now rescind the temple work because the person was exed?” Seems kinda silly to me.
I had heard that you just write a letter to the 1st Pres. and say you want your exed relative work done and then they’ll look into the records they have and get back to you and the Temple, no need for a Stake Pres or Bishop’s involvement. Just write a letter
Recording a death in the membership record is what releases that person into public view on Family Tree with all the applicable temple work. “LDS church membership record” will be listed as the person adding the information. (The tie with church membership records is also why you can view your parents and children when you first sign in to FamilySearch’s Family Tree.) I’m pretty sure I know of one situation where temple work is being held due to a person’s association with modern polygamy. One reason they have to check is they want to know what that person was excommunicated for.
Is there a difference if they resign (especially if not polygamy related)? While they may have a church record, how would the church know when they die? I think it’s unlikely that record will be made available until 110 years after their birth.
I have helped several people sign on to FamilySearch, but living parents are never listed, and we just add them manually (thus creating duplicates) because we can’t see the living person. I’ve not once seen someone listed with their parents already in the tree.
My living, excommunicated father shows up in my tree on family search, so I’m a little confused by Mormon Heretic’s problem. However, I am slightly miffed to discover (while checking details for this comment) that family search lists my name as my maiden name. As an unmarried woman, it’s just my name. And I don’t plan to change it upon marriage, either. Smash the patriarchy!
I assume it would be much easier to get clearance if they resign and there wasn’t any disciplinary history. Haven’t helped anyone go through that process (might be the same form as the applications to the First Presidency that bishops must fill out electronically).
As far as parents showing up on Family Tree, it’s kind of finicky. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. When I set two of my kids up with their own accounts, they pulled in the parents automatically (funny thing is my PID is different depending if you look at my son’s, my daughter’s, or my own personal account). I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t have to set up any dummy accounts. In the past I almost always had to. Figured they’d finally fixed whatever bug was causing the problem.
I’m looking at several cases right now. They are being handled in a variety of ways which may have to do with the family contacting FamilySearch. In one, ordinances show as “Not Available.” In others, they show as “Request (Permission Required).” I can’t say what happens when you click on “Request,” since I’m not going to try.
I feel sorry for software developers employed by the LDS church. There’s a lot of pressure when your software bugs affect the fate of spirits for all eternity. Sounds like there’s going to be a lot of explaining to do when Mormons turn up at the Celestial gate and see “ERROR: PID NOT RECOGNIZED (109637).”
Really anon. Please save your sarcastic comments for exmormon.org where I’m sure they are better appreciated than here.
Need Screen Name, that usually pops up when the system recognizes that the person was born within the last 110 years. I’ve helped several people go through the process. The church wants to verify that you have gotten permission from the closest living relative (spouse, child, parent, sibling). They will ask you to fill in your contact information. Then they will ask that you fill in information for the person who gave you the permission, including some sort of contact information and their relationship to the deceased. I assume this is to cover themselves if anyone angrily contacts the church asking why temple work was done. In one case I worked with, the girl I was helping was the niece of the deceased and qualified as a closest living relative. The church wanted proof no spouse, child, parent, or sibling was around, so she submitted copies of the legal paperwork showing how the estate had been divided among the heirs (all known nieces of the deceased). It’s kind of a pain, but I’m glad they are buckling down on it.
Anon, no need for snark. Getting family relationships down accurately and recording temple work so people don’t have to waste more time on it than they feel they should is a big deal to a lot of us. Temple work for deceased relatives is what got the church into genealogy in the first place, and they are well-known for being a genealogy powerhouse, providing all services and records free to patrons. A lot of people worldwide benefit from time and money members pour into this.
@mary ann
“Getting family relationships down accurately and recording temple work so people don’t have to waste more time on it than they feel they should is a big deal to a lot of us.”
“[Given] the openness of the system, the rise of personal computer technology and the Internet, and hundreds of thousands of Church members who can now quickly submit large numbers of names, mistakes simply cannot be eliminated.”
http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/background-explanation-of-temple-baptism
Unfortunately, my very valid point was overlooked in a hasty rush to judgement. There are no real controls over so-called “temple work” and neither the software nor procedures guarantee the accuracy of genealogical records. Therefore, according to Mormon beliefs, the eternal fate of human souls is left up to buggy software and procedures. IMHO, placing value on Mormon genealogical records is a specious argument and more of an excuse to justify vicarious baptism. Time, money, and human resources spent on “temple work” and maintaining a huge inaccurate database could be spent on better things.
I’m in total agreement with the arguments laid out in the above link: if Mormons want to do “temple work” for their own immediate relatives, then fine (I find it incredibly rude and presumptuous, but what folks do with their own family is up to them). I *strongly* disagree with Mormons doing “temple work” for random unrelated people–presumably off some list provided by the LDS church.
Remember: Only a miniscule proportion of people in the world are Mormon (or have even heard of Mormonism) and the religion itself has been around for an eye-blink in the scheme of things, so only a vanishingly tiny proportion of this huge effort has any meaning. Add to that, Mormon theology says that everybody goes to some level of heaven anyway, making the whole business of vicarious baptism even more useless.
In summary, the idea of baptizing everybody who ever lived on the Earth and “sealing” them into one big happy family is ridiculous on the face of it. The LDS church would do better to spend its resources on something more useful, like feeding and caring for the living.
….and let me add that I also consider vicarious baptism incredibly racist and jingoistic. There have been many cultures that have no writing systems nor other means to record genealogical information. There are vast swaths of humanity without access to computers nor any sort of record-keeping mechanism. Support for genealogical records exists primarily in first-world countries and, primarily, western countries with–surprise, surprise–mostly Caucasian populations. Therefore, the LDS church database (and, by extension, LDS heaven) is heavily biased toward white people from first-world countries. This bias is further reinforced, in my mind, by LDS artwork and the makeup of the highest levels of Mormon leadership.
Anon, your opinion is valid. Even Western records are unreliable prior to 1500, meaning that even if we were able to note and place the billions of people we could document, it would still only be a drop in the bucket of all the humans that have ever lived on the planet. Kind of like the idea of missionary work. The percentage of people who will convert to Mormonism in this lifetime is a miniscule percentage of humans on this planet. Hoping to baptize even a noticeable portion is ultimately futile. Like Mother Teresa said, though, it can still matter to one individual. I know some people who are working with the church to get the billions of Asian records they currently have filmed indexed and available online. There is a heavy Caucasian bias, yes, but it doesn’t mean efforts are stagnant in other areas.
It’s incredibly presumptuous for any religion to declare themselves the one with the most truth at this time, we can’t get away from that. Family Tree drives me nuts with the ability to mess stuff up and lack of safeguards, but the point of the program is to avoid duplication of temple work, so allowing people to merge and change things at will is the current cost. Because of the intent of that program, I don’t encourage non-members to use it. Once a name is in the system it opens the possibility of some member doing temple work. The church has cut the extraction projects to my knowledge, so I do not believe they are adding any new names to Family Tree based on public records. There were marriage and birth records used to extract information in the past, though, so those names are in the system and often had temple work done back in the day. The current guidelines are for members to only work on their own family lines, though some are better about sticking to those guidelines than others.
The research portion of FamilySearch, though, holds tremendous value for any person. Many people do genealogical work as a hobby and find immense personal value in that work. Some idiots are just looking to find prestigious heritage, but most people find value in learning about the reality of their ancestors – good and bad. Learning your ancestor was a pillar of the community can inspire in one way, but learning your ancestor helped perpetrate a massacre can inspire in a different way. It forces you to take ownership of that injustice and helps you realize no-one is immune from getting caught up in unjustified hysteria. Focus on learning about others trains you to look at life through someone else’s eyes. That holds value.
I don’t regret using my research skills to help others learn about their ancestors. I’ve seen their reactions. I know what it is to watch someone see a picture of their biological relatives for the first time in their lives. I’ve done research for plenty of people who aren’t Mormon and the impact on their lives is just as significant.
@mary ann
I searched my ancestry when I visited Temple Square and I learned some details I didn’t know before. It was quite fascinating.
“I find it incredibly rude and presumptuous….”
I find anon incredibly rude and presumptuous, and find plenty of his/her cynicism to object to, such as “Therefore, according to Mormon beliefs, the eternal fate of human souls is left up to buggy software and procedures.”
Puhleez. This is 2 dimensional, distorted thinking and anon is hardly an expert on “Mormon beliefs.” He/she is the LAST person I would want to explain Mormon theology, and I hardly find anon’s points valid with such a distorted way of discussing Mormon beliefs.
” I also consider vicarious baptism incredibly racist…” Look, I don’t deny that Mormons have long catered to European tastes, but the fact of the matter is things are getting better. It’s much easier for the church to negotiate with European democracies for records than say communist governments in Russia, Vietnam, or China. I was recently working with a guy from Cambodia and he told me that the Khmer Rouge burned records and obviously it is going to nearly impossible to do genealogical research until a new government gets in. Instead of doing research, I recommended he start indexing records, but none are available to index. It really sucks to be him, but the church isn’t necessarily favoring white Europeans so much as the Cambodian government just isn’t willing to cooperate with anyone. The LDS Church has made great strides to make genealogical records available to descendants of African slaves through the Freedman project (see https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/freedmens-bureau?lang=eng ) so I find your arguments that these projects to be racist to be specious at best, and disgusting at worst.
Once again, this indicates your antipathy toward the LDS Church, and while MaryAnn is being too nice for saying your opinion is valid. It is full of race-baiting and inflammatory rhetoric that overwhelms any other good points you may offer.
I will ask you to please refrain from the rude and presumptuous comments, or as an administrator I will ask you to be banned. And that’s not an empty threat. I’ve given you a long leash and I’m ready to start yanking on it. Just give me one more opportunity and see what happens.
Sorry that wasn’t clear. Those are all examples of excommunicated members and/or cancelled sealings. The system is handling them in a variety of way, and the difference seems to be due to family members escalating the situation to FamilySearch/the First Presidency.
Need Screen Name, gotcha.