TEMPLE READY: FAMILYSEARCH RESERVATIONS, AND POLICIES EXPLAINED

Are you overwhelmed with a box full of family history information that needs to be put in FamilySearch? Are you confused on the new policies about temple reservations on Family Search? In this episode, Colette, addresses these specific concerns and teaches easier ways to stay on top of overwhelming piles of treasured information and how to navigate the changing policies of reserving temple names. 

YouTube: Temple Ready: FamilySearch, Reservations, and Policies Explained Video: https://youtu.be/RYmCVPnBzT4

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Hello, welcome back to the Gathering Academy. I am um excited to share a couple of things with you. Um if you're joining on a podcast, um just on your phone, then you can also watch the actual physical so you can see some of the things that I'm going to demonstrate today on YouTube. So if not, you can just um continue to listen and I'm going to share some fun things with you today. One of the first things that I want to share is um I've shared this before, but it is a it's a pen that I love. It's called the Muji pen. And this one actually now comes in a clickable size. And the reason I'm showing this to you is because this is really helpful for me for um labeling my photographs. It's archival safe, and I have like I always have these on hand, and it's fine-tipped. I really like how fine it is. Well, so I'm gonna show you why I'm showing you this. This is my little tip for the week. I came home from a trip and I just want to show you this box. This box was sitting on my couch, and it came from my mom, apparently. I haven't even had a chance to ask her, but it had letters that I had sent and my siblings had sent um years ago to my grandma, and so I found um these letters that were typed out and printed on an old printer, and this one was from 1998, and it was it was just so fun to open them and see them, but then I was a little overwhelmed with what I've got going on in my life, and I thought, how am I going to do this? And then I had this little inspiration. You can do one. One is going to take you two minutes. So, what I did is I would take this, I laid it on the ground, very simply. I took my phone, held it over, and took a couple of pictures, and then I sent it to my family, whoever, so I've got some for my brothers, I send it to them. Um, but it gave them a little blast from the past. It was a little heart-turning experience um to be able to share that. Um, and they were they were thankful for it. So then I got this done. Then what? So, what I do is I take this little um pen and on the back I just put a teeny little check mark, and I do the same with photos. That way I know that's my little system. Somebody else, I guess if they inherit it won't know that system, but unless I make a note, but that's my system to know I've done that one. And I can fold it up, put it away, and then I can do another one on another day. Um, I don't have big blocks of time to document this information. So once I've done that, then I open up my phone and I um scroll over to memories and I can add it to memories. So the memories app, let me see. I don't know if I can show it to you very easily on the screen, but I'm gonna try. So let me see if I can get back to the memories here. So memories, there you go. See, memories is a little green icon, and you can download that separately from the family search app. So the memories will upload everything to your gallery. Just remember you need to tag it or share it in a family group for other people to be able to see it. Um, if it's not tagged to somebody who's deceased, then when you pass away, all of that is gone. So it's important or shared within a family group. If you share it within a family group, then others will be able to see it. Um so it's really important that you get those tagged. And so if it's a living person, that's why you'd want to put it in a family group so your family can see it and share it. So that's what I do, or I open up my um family tree app. So I'll open up my family tree and I'll go to the tree. So you can see the tree there. Then I tap on the person that it pertains to. So let's say this was my grandma, and I'm showing you here, then I would tap on this little blue plus button. Actually, I'd scroll over to memories first, sorry about that. So memories is right there up at the top. I scroll over and then I can click on this little plus button right there, and I can do add a photo, and then it was from my camera roll, and then I take it from the camera roll, and there it's done. So it's a very easy way because it can be very overwhelming with everything that we have to get digitized and to save, and something is better than nothing. Um, I can say that for sure because I've got a lot of people on my tree that don't have anything. Um, so the next thing that I wanted to share with you, we're going to do a share screen. Hello to share your screen. Here we go. All right, we're going to go into um, we're going to go to I'll start here at Family Search on the main page. The first thing we want to do is we're going to go to Temple and go to um, we're going to look at this. We've got my reservations. For those of you that are new, my reservations is going to have everything that you have personally reserved. Family groups is what you've shared with other people. Um, if you've shared it with the temple, this is where you can find it and you can unreserve it and bring it back to you to your reservations. I just want to show you one thing. When we go to the shared with temple, we've talked about this before, but if you're new, under shared with temple, you have the ability to check the box next to the person's name. So here's Magnus. If I want to um put that back into my reservations, which is up here, then I would say unshare. If I unreserve it, that means it sends it back to the temple. I mean not back to the tree, so anybody will see it there. Um, the nice thing about when it's shared with temple is that it will be a green temple with a little clock so anyone can come and do the work for you. Um, they don't have to be related and they can help you out. So it is really beneficial to have it shared with temple. I try to share as many as I can with the temple. As you can see, I still this week I got a lot more and I've got to come back in and get them shared with the temple. Um, you can see here, this little icon, this little temple means that this person has been shared and printed. See this little icon, we don't have that for Joseph. And he's shared, but he's not printed. So I can't take Carl Johan back. Once it's been printed from the temple, it's there. So um make sure when you are sharing with the temple that they're ones that you are okay sharing. Um, that you won't be sad if if you don't get to do it. So you can see here that this Jens Christensen draws back Broadstead is finally printed. And look at what I shared it with in 2017. Holy cow! So that's very exciting that that's happening, that those ones have been done or being have been printed. So what I can do then, once I can come back and I can make a note of this ID number, and I could come back and then I can go to completed. So over here on this side is completed, and you can see that this will show for two years, but I can come back and I can look for um them. I can do options options, I can do by individual ordinances or group by ID. So I could do have them grouped all by an ID. Um, but I would come back in here and I could see if I could find out um what temple it was done at and how long it took from the time I saw this to when it's done. Um this um just a reminder: if you're not sure where to go next, go to your complete its, click on a person. So this is Shirston. I just did her yesterday and had a very incredible experience um at the Vale. And when I came home, I had just had this feeling that I needed to go back and look at her. And I found out that um none of her children, she had eight children in family search, none had been reserved for their work to be done. Um, I think I had found them and decided I wanted to find out if they lived past age eight, which I always recommend to people, and I'd forgotten to get back to it. Um, so I I'm getting those reserved today. And then I also found out when I went back and revisited the records that her husband had died in 1749 and she remarried, and it was right there. It was just really teeny, but it showed her hus' second husband, um, Olaf Mattson, who she married in 1751. In fact, I may have that open here. Let me see if I have that open. I don't know if I still have it open. Nope, I don't. So let's go back. But so that's that's one of the benefits of coming back to the person. And so actually, I can show you this here. So this morning I was able to add Olaf Matson and their marriage date. And they actually have one more daughter, Karen. And she was born in 1752. So I added to this Karen Thomas daughter, I added that she um died before 1752. Now I'm noticing that there's kind of an error here because it should not be showing all green. Let's click on her for a second. Um, because she died before 1752. She should be showing up as it does now. So sometimes there's a lag. So always go into the ordinances to see, and she only needs the um ceiling to parent. So I'm going to go ahead and request that. And this is the next step that generally I do. You can reserve individuals one by one and then share ordinances with Temple. And so I'm going to share that with Temple right now so that she is in the queue. I can always come back and pull her back. But I could also go if I go to let's go to her dad. So let's go to Thomas Pearson. If I click on tree, and this is a review, we've we've talked about this before, but for those of you that are new, if you come onto the tree and you go here to this, this is him with actually this wife, Maylin. So here's another good tip. You're like, what happened to Shirston? See this right here. This means there's another spouse. So Maylin was the first spouse. She died in 1736. Then we have Sherston. So Sherston, all of a sudden, look what happened. All of these green. So what I can do is I can reserve this entire family by clicking on the green table within that couple's box. I could go individually and then share individually, or I can come in here and click here. And now you see all of these are checked. So I'm going to be able to reserve all of them. And I have verified that all of these lived past age eight. So I feel good about that. And I could click request. And then you'll see they will usually change to blue. Sometimes it takes a second. Look at all of those are blue. So currently those are all in my reservations. But if I want to go and share them with the temple, I can do it one by one this way. I can click on Brita and I can click on her name. And then I'll go into her ordinances. So this is this takes a little bit longer to do it this way, but I can click share and share with temple, and then I can share with temple that way. Or once I've done a bunch and I've they've I've sent them to my reservations, I can go to my reservations, and this is always good to review because it can get a little confusing. It does not have this in the automatically, it does not pop up as your most recent. You can see this was reserved in 2024. So I come up to the right-hand corner and I click filter, and then I'm going to change from ascending. I click to make descending and then date reserved. All of a sudden, that gives me the 14th of June 2026. And now I can check the box for all of these that I just reserved. And then we can share them with the temples. So let's see how many do we have here? And this one, so I guess that was all of that family. So then I click share, share with temple, or I can share with the individual group, and you can see how I do everybody all at once. So it's a lot faster than just doing them one at a time. So I'm sharing with temple. And now I could call my sister and say, are your kids doing baptisms this week? Here's the ID number, and they can go in and reserve these because they've been shared with the temple. Um, I could send them to her as well, and then they could do them. But since I've sent it to the temple, what I'd have to do if I come back here to shared with temple, I would have to do the same thing. I would have to come in and I would have to put it back in my reservations and then share it. So in order to do that, I would do filter and I would do click on ascending. And then, and actually it just came up right here. So I would click unreserve, or no, I wouldn't unreserve. That will take it back to the tree. I would unshare it. So let's say we're just unsharing Erlin. Then I go back, this is 223, it should get up to 224. And I'm going to come back here and I can actually search just by his name if I'm just sharing one, Erlin. And um here he is right here. And I could click on this, isn't actually even a baptism, but I could click on this and then I can say share, share with group or share with individual, and then I put my sister's name in her email, and then I click send and then let her know. And if once I've sent it, it's locked for 14 days. And if she doesn't um grab it, then it will go back into my reservations. So that's a little tip there for you. All right. The other thing that I wanted to cover today was something that you may not see. At the very bottom of this, you can click schedule an appointment and click on this schedule appointment, and then it will take you to your church login and you'll be able to sign in. Might take a second for us to get there. So we come here and actually, yep, so we've got the oh, it's signed in for me because I was already signed in. And so I can select this temple or a different temple. So if I select this temple, then I can choose which ordinance I want to do. So let's say it's a ceiling and I say next, and then I can choose my spouse or additional guests, and then I'll choose my date. And so let's say I wanted to go on Friday the 19th, and then I see all of the ones that are available. So another tip. So now we're gonna go to the last tip here that I want to share today. Let's see if I can get into it. Um, here we go. Reservation policy. This is a question we get a lot of who can I do temple work for? Um, and so it's down now down at the bottom of this temple. When you go into temple, we're gonna and you go into my reservations on the right side or left side at the very bottom is the reservation policy. So when we go into that, we're gonna click on the reservation policy. This you can listen to it or you can read it. So if you're teaching in a class, um, you can listen to it or you can go through it with the class or share it with somebody who has questions if you're a family history consultant. So your responsibilities are your immediate family, your spouse, children, siblings, and parents. And the policy as of a year ago changed to tighten, tighten it up so that we're focusing on our direct lines. Um, there's a lot of reasons behind why, um, but that is the current policy right now. Um, and then you can also submit the names for biological, adoptive, step, and foster that are connected, and an undivorced spouse's family. So for descendants, you can do the descendant spouses, and descendant spouses may be sealed to their parents, but you are not allowed to do the parents' work. So it kind of seems counterintuitive. I call it, it goes into escrow. Um, so that sealing is done. I don't understand or know the reasons why, but um, I do know that that's you have the ability to do that because that is the current policy. Um, and then um we cannot do it. It used to be that you could do the grandparents and other ancestors of your descendant spouses. That is not the possible, uh that's not possible now. And your own descendants. So um for those that are born in the last 110 years, we get this question a lot. Um, you need to be a close living relative or obtain permission from them. And it's highly recommended that you get it in in written um uh form, particularly if they're from a country where there may be some restrictions on temple work being done, like India. Um so a close living relative means a living, undivorced spouse, an adult child, a parent, or a brother or sister. And so it says, please prioritize the wishes of a living spouse when seeking permission. Um, permission granted by a deceased person before death does not qualify. It must come from a close living relative. So I've had people say, Well, I was a missionary and I taught this person and they were so close to getting baptized and they passed away. Can I do their work? You would need to get permission from the closest living relative. Um I've had people say, Well, they gave me permission. Um, but if that permission was not written down, then it's not possible for you to do it unless you get um the permission from the closest living relative. Um, so it says if you simply do not know whether the individual has close living close relatives or cannot contact them, do not request permission to do the ordinances. Instead, conduct further research to find the closest living relative or confirm that all close living relatives are deceased. So permission from the family history department is also required to submit ordinances under rare circumstances. So family search lists no relationship between you and a person, um, and you need to be prepared to validate that relationship. Um, or you are a descendant of victims of the Jewish Holocaust and want to submit their names for temple work, you need to pre-prepare prepared to submit information or permission from all of the living relatives. So, um, and then down here at the bottom, it says um, it gives you some more related policies. How do I request temple ordinances when Family Tree says I am not related? What is the 110 policy and why was it initiated? How do I request temple ordinances for a friend, proxy temple ordinances for a friend? Can I do temple work for victims of the Jewish Holocaust? And can I request ordinances for people who lived before AD 200? So each of these are ones that you can click on. And the easiest way is just to go to your temple reservations and on the left-hand side, you can go all the way down to the bottom and you will be led to this area. Um, so let's talk about this one because I did have somebody come and ask me this question before. How do I request temple ordinances when Family Tree says I am not related? Actually, I'm gonna skip that one. How do I request proxy temple ordinances for a friend? That's the one that I did actually did have somebody come. And um to request ordinances for an unrelated friend, obtain some signed permission from a close living relative of your friend. So um some people have said, I had this friend and I know they would accept the gospel. Um, or we had we were so close to them being baptized and they didn't get baptized. So here it says um you need to request it from the undivorced spouse, adult child, parent, or sibling. And remember that the spouse has the number one priority. Um, and then before you start, obtain signed written permission from a close living relative of your friend, keep in mind the following: we cannot accept permission given by yourself or even permission granted by your friend before his or her death. Permission must be from a close living relative. If your deceased friend has no close living relatives or you cannot contact them, we cannot grant permission to do the work. So even if they, even if they gave you permission verbally or even in writing, you still need to go to the closest living relative because they passed away. Um it's very much about respect for the living family. And I appreciate that. Um, you must have an email address that you can access and that you can use to respond to emails. Um, the 110 permission form in Family Tree cannot be used for this process. You can receive the permission through email, but it must contain a handwritten signature from the close living relative who was giving permission. So I had somebody that had traveled all the way to India. She talked to some relatives. They did not know how to write and they gave her verbal permission. She was very disappointed when she came back and found out that she could not do the work. Um, it cannot be a digital signature. And um, you can it does say you can scan or take a picture of the permission with the handwritten signature and attach and send the image as part of your email. And then it gives you an example of how to get that permission. I, and then the name of the person give your name permission to do temple work in a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Temple for this person who is my mom, sister. Um, and then they have their handwritten signature. If your deceased friend has no close living relatives, we cannot grant permission to do the work. So then there's some steps. You need to add the person to the family tree. Make sure you note the ID number because you'll need to submit that um in your request. Um contact family search, and there's a little link right here where you can contact them. And then you need to provide the following: make sure that you include the family tree ID for the person you want to perform the ordinances for, the full name of who you want to perform the ordinances for, and then the name of the person who gave the permission and that person's relationship to the deceased. You need your username and helper number, or the person's username and helper number who has been given who has given permission to request request the ordinance. Um, and then a support agent will be sent the information and they will look over it. The specialist will look it over, and then just watch for a response by email. And then you will respond to the email. Um so it says do not attach the written permission as a memory on Family Search. So if your request is approved, uh System Administrator will add the approved registration to your list and notify you. So it'll automatically go into your temple ordinances. If it's not approved, you will receive a notification explanation. So um just know that not everything's approved and they will tell you why if it was not approved. And sometimes you can go back and fix something to make it right. So that is a little bit about um, let me unshare our screen. Stop sharing. There we go. So that's a little bit about um how you can maximize your temple reservations um window better. There's a lot more options and some things that they can teach you. Um, we do get a lot of questions about doing temple work for um other people who have who have died. And I hope that this will help you, if especially if you're a family history consultant or you may have somebody come and ask you this question, you at least know now if you can't quote everything verbatim, you know now where to go to be able to find that. Um so my my challenge for you this week is again, and I think I did this last week, but is go to your temple reservations um to your completed and see what you've done, even if you've only ever done ordinances ready. If you've never done any of that at all, go to your phone and download the Family Tree app. And if you if you don't have it, if not, you open it up, and right in the center, you will have oops, this is from yesterday. You will have um your the little temple and it has ordinances ready. You can swipe over to your completed, and you'll be able to see the names of the people that you've done. If you've never done it before, you can click ordinances ready and you can choose a name to do. So I'm going to do female and I'm going to do initiatory. Once you've completed that name, then you can go back and look at that family, or before you go to do the work, you can go and look at that person. So on this instance, Christina Mann's daughter, I came in here and she needs, if I scroll over, she needs her initiatory done, but I can look at her spouses. She has a spouse named Pear, so I can click on him and I can look at his ordinances. And he is actually, he has had his initiatory done and he's waiting for his endowment. So I can come back to this family and I can focus on working on them and completing their work. So have a great week, and we'll see you next time.