Temple and Family History Lesson 9: Submitting Names for Temple Ordinances
Temple and Family
History Lessons
Lesson 9
Submitting Names for
Temple Ordinances
In Lesson 7 we talked about verifying the information
concerning our deceased ancestors with valid and dependable sources. In Lesson 8 we introduced techniques and tools
for seeking out these names and relationships.
One of our prime reasons for seeking and verifying these names of our
people is to perform vicariously for them, in sacred temples, the saving
ordinances of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Family Search is currently the only avenue available to
members of the Church for submitting names to temples. The reason for this is that the Family Search
program has the means to search existing temple records world wide and
determine if the ordinances for a deceased person have already been done.
The duplication of temple ordinances in the past has been a
serious concern. To avoid
duplications sophisticated search
algorithms have been developed to identify previously performed ordinances for
a deceased person. But these searching
tools can only work if we, the Family Search users, are diligent in avoiding
the creation of multiple Person Pages for the same person. Multiple Person Pages occur typically when
there are multiple records for the same person that appear to be different
because of a variation in the spelling of the person’s name or small errors in
dates or place names. Such duplications
are often inevitable, but it is up to us to do our best to identify and merge
multiple records that refer to the same person.
Often the solution to preventing duplicate ordinances is to
merge together two seemingly different persons that are really the same
person. We will look at the process for
doing this in a later lesson.
This is perhaps our greatest responsibility in submitting
names for temple work, to avoid submitting a request for an ordinance that has
already been completed.
A Few Guidelines
First, a few guidelines and rules regarding submitting names
for temple work. We are encouraged to
submit the names of our direct-line ancestors, members of their immediate
families, and the descendants of those people.
I made a little spreadsheet calculation a few years ago and have been
able to estimate that if you go back 10 generations, to somewhere in the middle
of the 18th century, barring any unusual circumstances such as
cousins intermarrying, and assuming each ancestral couple have three children
who grow to maturity and marry and have three children of their own and this
pattern follows down to the present day, you will have about 43 million
relatives. That gives you plenty of work
to do for the next few years.
But one of the rules applying to name submission is that we
may not submit the names of persons born fewer than 110 years ago if we are not
the closest living relative of that person.
If we apply that rule to our calculation of number of relatives,
eliminating all who have been born fewer than 110 years ago, that reduces the
number of relatives we can do temple work for to about 1.5 million, a much more
manageable number!
We may submit the name of a person born within the last 110
years if we obtain the written permission of a living person who is a closest
living relative of the that person.
Getting that permission is often problematic as we may not know any living
relatives of the person, and if we can find one they are most likely not
members of the church or they would have already had the work done for that
person. And if they are not members of
the church they may not be too keen on having their close relative involved in
sacred temple ordinances that they know nothing about. On the other hand, seeking such permission
could provide an opportunity for sharing the message of the restoration with a
ready relative.
We have already mentioned the other important guideline for
submitting names, and that is that we make every effort to avoid duplication of
temple ordinances. The first rule for
avoiding duplication is to have positive identification of our person. Positive identification means that we have a
complete name, not just ‘Mary’, or Mr. Jones or Mrs. Smith, but honest first
and last names with middle names if possible.
Then we must have a birth date.
It is best if we have the actual day of birth, not just a year or range
of years. Thirdly we must have a
definite place of birth; a city or village, county of province, state, and
country. It would be very rare indeed
for two different people to be born with the same name on the same day in the
same place. So if we have these three
pieces of information we can be pretty sure that we have uniquely identified
our relative.
Seeing what work has already been done
For persons who have already been found and have a Person
Page created in Family Search there are several ways to discover what temple
work has already been done and what ordinances remain to be done. Perhaps the first way to see this, for
persons who are direct-line ancestors, is to look at the ‘Tree View’ that
includes the person. Figure 1 is a view
of my Landscape tree with myself at the first position at the far left of the
tree.
Figure 1. Landscape tree showing ordinance status
Notice that the “Options” button at the upper right corner
has been clicked and all of the Ordinance options have been checked. This causes the several colored tiles to be
displayed inside each couple’s name box.
If there are no colored tiles showing that means the ordinances are
completed. The green tile indicates that
there are ordinances that can be requested.
The red exclamation mark indicates some problem with vital data that
needs solving before ordinances can be requested. The blue tile indicates record hints are
available for someone in the name box, either for the couple or for their
children.
Similar information can be shown in the fan chart view as seen
in Figure 2. Notice that in the box under the Fan Chart choice in the upper left
corner the option called “Ordinances” has been checked.
Figure 2. Fan chart showing status of ordinance work for ancestors.
This option highlights each person’s name box according to
their ordinance status. White color
indicates all ordinances are completed.
Dark blue indicates work is in progress, orange indicates some problem
with requesting ordinances for that person, and green indicates that there are
ordinances that can be requested. This
is a quick way to see ordinance status for direct-line ancestors.
On almost any page in Family Search where an ancestor’s name
appears, if you click on the name, a window opens that I will call the "Abbreviated Person Window". We have
looked at this window before as the gateway to the persons full Person Page
which can be reached by clicking on either the name at the top of the window or
the word “Person” in the grey bar at the bottom of the window.
Figure 3 shows the same screen as Figure 2 but the name of
Magdalena Kerner has been clicked, opening the Abbreviated Person Window. One of the conveniences of this window is
that it shows, at the bottom, the actual status of each of the ordinances for
that person. You can see for Magdalena that all the ordinances except the
sealing to parents have been completed.
The reason why I have not submitted this ordinance is that I do not have
the three required pieces of information described above for either her mother
or her father. Even though Family Search
will allow me to request the ordinance,
I would like to gather more facts to be confident that I am not
requesting a duplicate ordinance.
The next source for temple ordinance information is the “Descendancy
chart”. This is easily reached from the
Fan Chart that we see in Figures 2 or 3.
If we hover the curser over a name box on the Fan Chart a grey stripe
appears at the inner radius of the box, or wedge. Clicking on that grey stripe moves that
person to the center of the fan chart.
Figure 4 shows where we have done this for Magdalena Kerner. Her fan chart is small because we do not know
her paternal or maternal grandparents.
But we have moved to her chart so we can look at all of her descendants
in the “Descendancy chart”. The
“Descendancy Chart” is viewed by clicking on the “Descendancy” option in the
Chart-Types box as highlighted in red in Figure 4.
This immediately opens the Descendancy Chart as shown in
Figure 5. Here we see all of the known
descendants of Magdalena and Johann Tebbe for 1, 2, 3, or 4 generations,
selectable at the top of the chart. With
each name on this chart there is shown the same ordinance information that we saw
on the Landscape Tree, indicated by colored tiles off to the right of each
name. What we have now is the ordinance
status for not only our direct-line ancestor but also for all of their
descendants. We will look at this chart
again in our next lesson on “Descendancy Research”.
Now that we have seen several places that show where
ordinance work is needed, let’s return to the Person Page to see how to
actually request that an ordinance be completed.
Figure 4. Selecting the Descendancy Chart for Magdalena Kerner.
Submitting Ordinances to the Temple
Figure 6 shows the Person Page for one of my distant aunts,
Anne Catharine Ilsabein Tebbe. I have
chosen her page because there is an available ordinance here which we can use
for an example.
Figure 6. Person Page for Anne Tebbe, with highlighted link to Temple Ordinances.
In this figure I have highlighted in a red oval the link to
display the status of temple ordinances for Anne. This link opens the page shown in Figure 7.
Figure 7. Ordinance Status page for Anne showing available sealing to parents.
We can see in Figure 7 that Anne’s sealing to her parents
has not been completed and is available to request (the green colored tile is displayed). To request this ordinance we will click on
the blue “Request” link highlighted at the upper left of the screen. This “Request” link will then open a small
dialog box as shown in Figure 8, allowing us to select which ordinances we want
to request. In this simple case there is
only one ordinance available, so we will click on the repeated “Request” link
shown inside the small dialog box.
Figure 8. Dialog box allowing selection of ordinances to be requested.
Figure 9. User agreement for reserving Temple ordinances.
This link will open the screen shown in Figure 9, which is the user agreement certifying
that we are complying with church policy in requesting these ordinances. The principal issues described here are
regarding your relationship to the deceased person for whom you are requesting
the ordinances.
Assuming you click on “Accept” at the bottom of the page,
the next page to open is a return to the “Ordinances” page but this time
offering three choices for what you want to do with your requested ordinances;
print ordinance cards to take to the temple, share the ordinances with other
family members or with the temple system, or unreserve the ordinances because
you have changed your mind or you want to let someone else reserve them. I don’t think the “Unreserve” option is frequently
chosen, I have never chosen it. The
“Share” option allows you to share the ordinances with the Worldwide Temple
System.
This share will allow your ordinance to be performed by any
person in any temple in the world, although it may be several years before the
system gets around to your ordinance.
If you later decide to personally take the name to a temple you can un-share
the ordinance and print the card yourself.
The “Print” option allows you to either directly print the ordinance card on your own printer or to print a “FOR” (Family Ordinance Request) form if you do not have a printer. These options are shown in Figure 11. If you present the FOR form in any temple office or just the record number from the FOR the temple staff will print the ordinance card for you.
Since most users have a printer at home it is common to print the cards directly at home. Choosing the option “Print Family Name Cards” triggers the next option shown in Figure 12. Which of the requested ordinances do you wish to print cards for? In our example case there is only one ordinance so there is no selection to be made. We will click on the blue “Continue” link at the bottom of the box.
Figure 12. Choosing which ordinances you wish to print cards for.
This “Continue” link opens the next box which shows an image
of the card or cards to be printed. This screen is shown in Figure 13. If
everything looks correct on the image, click “Continue” again and the control
is turned over to your home printer, allowing you to print the page. After printing another box will open asking
if the printing was successful.
Figure 13. Image of the card to be printed.
If everything went well you should now have the printed page
with the ordinance card. The card can
now be cut out of the page with scissors and taken to the temple. You can take this card to the temple
yourself, or give it to another member of your family to take, or give it to a
friend or member of your ward to take.
What you cannot do, at least in U.S. temples, is take the card to the
temple and try to give it to a stranger in the temple to perform the ordinance
for you. The Church Temple Committee
frowns on this practice and it is one of the few issues wherein the temple
Presidency, Recorder, or Ordinance Workers will tell you not to do this in the
temple.
Ordinances Ready
Another important tool that should be introduced in this lesson is the link called “Ordinances Ready”. This link can be accessed from almost any page in Family Search as it is in the horizontal menu at the top of every page. To reach this option click on the “Temple” option at the far right of that upper menu bar. The “Ordinances Ready” link is at the bottom of the drop-down menu that opens under “Temple” as shown in Figure 14.
If you are going to the temple in an hour and you need an
ordinance card this is a useful tool to help you find that ordinance. When you click on “Ordinances Ready” a dialog
box opens asking which type of ordinance you are looking for. You can choose Baptism, Initiatory,
Endowment, Sealing to Spouse, or Sealing to Parents.
When you click on one of these Family Search will search for
ordinances from your own reservation list, from your family tree, or from names
already submitted by yourself or others and shared with the temple system. The only conditions for adding an ordinance to
the list is that the ordinance be ready to request and that the person have
some definable relationship to you. If
an ordinance that has been shared with the temple system, but not yet completed,
appears on the list and you select it,
The “Ordinances Ready” tool will only allow you to print a
card for the specific ordinance you requested.
Even if others are ready their date-stamp box will be shaded in so that
you cannot perform additional ordinances.
For example, if you requested an initiatory ordinance, and even though
the endowment may be ready to request, the card printed by “Ordinances Ready”
will only let you do the initiatory ordinance.
To do the endowment you would have to either request “Endowment” from
the “Ordinances Ready” page or go to the person’s Person Page and request the
endowment as described in this lesson.
Temple Opportunities
One final place to look for ordinances that are ready to be submitted for persons in your tree is a little list titled “Temple Opportunities”. It is located several pages deep in the “Help” section of every Family Search page. Figure 15 shows the location of the HELP icon (a small question mark in a circle) and the drop-down menu that appears when you click on that link.
Figure 15. Link to Helper Resources
At the bottom of that menu is a link called “Helper Resources”. Click on that link and the page shown in Figure 16 appears.
Figure 16. Link to “My Planner”.
There is some wonderful stuff available on this page, but I will leave you to investigate the page for yourselves. We are interested in the tiny link that I have circled in red called “My Planner”. Click on this link and the page shown in Figure 17 appears.
Figure 17. “My Planner” page showing link to “Temple”.
This page has fun family activities and other good stuff. Again, you should return to this page and check out what is available here. We will move from this page to the list of “Temple Opportunities” by clicking on the tiny link called “Temple”. This will open our final figure for this lesson, Figure 18.
Figure 18. Temple Opportunities
This page is self-explanatory. Three lists are displayed; 1) Persons for whom temple ordinances can be submitted, 2) Persons who need a small amount of additional information to be able to submit their ordinances, and 3) In this case a list of possible duplicate persons where you may need to perform a merge operation as described later in Lesson 11.
If you scroll up and down this page you will find other lists of persons where there are opportunities to discover and add helpful information. In the case of Temple Opportunities it will be necessary to click on the name of the person, then move to their ‘Person Page’ and look at the ‘Ordinances’ section as explained above to see which ordinances are ready for submitting.
In this lesson we have looked at how to find ordinances for
your deceased relatives that are not yet completed and can be requested. We then presented an example showing the
steps involved in requesting that an ordinance be reserved. We also introduced the "Ordinances Ready" tool and the "Temple Opportunities" tool.
In our next lesson we will further describe the “Descendancy”
tool which was mentioned in conjunction with Figure 5 in this lesson.
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