See who did temple work

[Meana]

I was baptized last year as an convert. I spent sometime doing family history and added it to the family search site so I could see how far back I could go before I found someone related toe who had their work done. Now I am preparing to go to the temple for myself for the first time and I logged on today to reserve people only to discover someone did almost all of it for me.

While I am glad work is being done for my family I feel like it was my job to do. I spent months digging though family records and entering names in the hope that I would be able to do work for them. Especially the great great grandmother I was named after.

Anyways my main question is how can I find out who did the work? All it says was it was completed (most of it January 2013)? All the site says us that the work was done. I would like to at the very least find a distant relative in the church. Also there are a few names that say reserved but have no name with them it would be nice to get in contact with them to see if I can get them to not finish the work so I can do it.

I at least learned my lesson and have now reserved the few people that I could.

[Meana]

And I typed on my iphone so please ignore spelling and auto type issues. :-)

[idahommie]

Meana,

Are you sure that your ancestors had not already had temple ordinances done when you entered them on your family tree in FamilySearch/FamilyTree? While my side of the family is done WAY back, we have been or king on my wife's, seems most of her families work has been done as well, with NO LDS members in her family, including her, that we know of. You have to be quick to reserve family names though if have they are older than 110 years.

Keep up with your Family History research!

[Meana]

I'm sure. All the work was done between November 2012- now. The names were not even in the system before I put them in.

[applepansy]

There should be a submission record with an email address.

[dahlia]

This happened to someone in my ward. Not only were tons of relatives' work done, but done in a part of the country where none of them had ever lived! As far as this person and the family knew, there were no LDS in the family before this person's conversion. Freaky.

[Yehshen]

Same deal with me. I converted to the church in 2011, and went through the temple first in December 2012. My father's family had no Mormon members that I know of, were from some small Baptist belt community in Appalachia, but yet church members have everyone done that died more than 110 years ago. And some were done very recently -- in the Salt Lake temple. Some members tell me that I must have a distant relative somewhere - but I don't think so. I think the Church must be very industrious with extractions.

So, yea, reserve those names!

[SQUARE]

Meana. I to was doing work for my wifes side. My Wife's side of the family I thought were not members. To my surprise a distant relative did alot of the work I thought I was going to be able to have completed. At first I thought who is this person and why are they doing this work. It was a couple of days latter when the Spirit softened my heart with gratitude for this relative who took the time not knowing if the work would ever be completed if they did not do it. Temple workers realize through council from the Temple Presidency that those names that do make it to the Temple are those who are waiting and ready to move in the Spirit World. I have reflected on the work that I have done with my family. Some Family members I have had a more urgent feeling to perform the temple work then others. The Spirit of Elijah inspires those who are getting this work done. There is alot of work going on in the Spirit World. Have you considered that your loved ones have been working with you on the other side by assiting with you being led to the Gospel Of Jesus Christ, being taught, and being Baptized etc. I believe that with all my heart. We must be very gratefull to any and all who have the desire to complete Temple work. The feelings of the Spirit that one feels while completing Temple work in not easy to put into words. The only way you can understand it is by doing it. By doing, will definetely build your Testimony of Temple work. There is much joy in the work of our Heavenly Father. As far as checking who is completing the work. Look who the contributers are. Usually you can Email. And do not worry. There is plenty of more work for you to complete. Temple work will never cease untill probably the Millenium is complete. Keep up the good work.

Edited March 8, 2013 by SQUARE

[pam]

I guess I take this from a different perspective. Yes it's wonderful to be able to do work for your own relatives. But knowing how long so many of these people have waited to have someone do their work, I just think it's wonderful that it was finally done and to me doesn't matter who did it. As long as it's done. There will always be more names that can be submitted and done.

[dahlia]

It was a couple of days latter when the Spirit softened my heart with gratitude for this relative who took the time not knowing if the work would ever be completed if they did not do it. Temple workers relize through council from the Temple Presidency that those name that do make it to the Temple are those who are ready to move in the Spirit World.

There is alot of work going on in the Spirit World. Have you considered that your loved ones have been working with you on the other side by assiting with you being led to the Gospel Of Jesus Christ, being taught, and being Baptized etc. I believe that with all my heart. We must be very gratefull to any and all who have the desire to complete Temple work.

I hadn't thought of it this way - connected a burning desire on our part to do temple work, with the readiness of the person to benefit from the work. It is wonderful to think that the people I've had work done for were waiting and actually wanting it done, rather than just doing the work in the hopes that it will be positively received.

When I had my husband baptized and confirmed, there was a group of rugby players from New Zealand there. I was able to sit by the font in Nauvoo, watch the guy do the baptism and then confirmed right there by the font (instead of in the little room where I'd done them). We shook hands and the young guy seemed very affected by the whole thing, as was I.

[Meana]

So I did find an e-mail address of someone who had a name on reserve. I e-mailed her the other day and got a response. Turns out we are share a 8th great grandfather (or something like that). Anyways it's best to have family (even if its extremly distant) who can help with temple work.

[NightSG]

This happened to someone in my ward. Not only were tons of relatives' work done, but done in a part of the country where none of them had ever lived! As far as this person and the family knew, there were no LDS in the family before this person's conversion. Freaky.

Same here; a lot of mine were done in Oregon, and as far as I've been able to find, the PNW is the one area my family never branched into.

[NightSG]

The plot thickens; my year after baptism just passed, and the bishop has been after me to schedule a TR interview, and I finally have a vehicle I would trust to get me to the temple, so I went to reserve a few of my recent ancestors.

My parents divorced when I was 7, and my father was killed just before my 11th birthday, so I was looking forward to getting started on his ordinances. I am his only child, and I know both of his siblings and their children. Imagine my surprise when I found his baptism and confirmation were done this month, two weeks apart in temples 2,000 miles apart and his other ordinances already reserved. Given that he was born in 1945, I would have had to certify that I am, or have the permission of his closest living relative, so this seems a bit fishy.

The person who reserved them appears to have their surname as part of their username, so I looked through everything on FamilySearch and my own notes, and there's nobody with that surname within eight generations and records out to fourth and fifth cousins. Neither of his siblings recognized it either.

[Meana]

Is there an e-mail address associated with that username? I e-mailed the person and got a response. She released all the name for me. The fact that someone is reserving names that they do not have permission to reserve though is troubling. Perhaps contact your Bishop to see if he knows who to contact to see if they can find out who is doing it.

At first I was upset that this work had been done but I was able to find two distant family members who are LDS. I e-mail one of them regularly.

[Iggy]

In April, our Branch took 225 family names to the temple and did the baptisms & confirmations for them. Now there were 6 young women, 3 young men, 5 married couples, one single man and 5 sisters. A total of 8 of us did not get in the water or participate in the confirmations. We witnessed.

We were told by the Temple President that there aren't enough names for the temple attendees to do. They encouraged us to turn the names in so that the initiatory & endowments could be done by others in other temples. We can reserve the sealing.

Husband and I only have his Father, Grandfather and Uncle to do. My great grandmother to do. Then get us all sealed to the proper people. This we want to do ourselves.

But for the couple ( who by the way are 76 & 74 years old) that brought 75 names - they really should release those names for initiatory and endowment work.

Also, my family thought we were the only ones to convert to LDS. In doing the research on my mothers side of the family, I discovered living cousins. Guess what? They are members of the church. Converted in the same years as we did. They have done the work for their parents, grands and greats. When I connected with them, my tree went from a puny sapling to a truly mature tree.

My little sister was really outraged that someone did the work for the great grands, uncles, aunts & cousins. She ate humble pie when she discovered that we have oodles and oodles of cousins who are LDS.

[NightSG]

I can accept some of the 4+ generation back ancestors being done. It would be easy to lose track of a line there. This is my father, though. If I have an unknown, long lost half sibling wandering around doing ordinances, I would think they might try contacting the person whose name is on the records (I entered his record shortly after my baptism) just to see what they could find out. Otherwise, this person falsely claimed to have the permission of the closest living relative in order to do the ordinances. To me, that shows an utter lack of respect for the family and the sacred ordinances themselves.I am, quite frankly, disgusted that such a person went through the motions of my father's ordinances.

I will speak to the bishop and a trusted friend who is a former bishop before I email the person, in no small part because they should be able to put me in a better mood to make the email a lot less unChristian than what I'd like to say right now.

[NightSG]

BTW, I'm posting from an evil Windows Mobile phone. I can't tell if my spacing is really that atrocious or not, but if it's as bad as it looks to me, I apologize and hope to have another Android phone next week.

[NightSG]

This person has also reserved most of my paternal line, and about four of them just got baptized or confirmed today. I sent an email last night, but I also contacted FamilySearch today to see if there's any way the rest of it can be stopped quickly so there will be something left for me to do for the people I've missed for so long.

Apparently, whoever it is is just reserving then names and submitting them, rather than doing them themselves. They're happening at random temples all over the world. That at least gives some small comfort in that the person standing as proxy for my father was completely innocent of the false claim to permission.

You know, it seems to me that there are people out there who just don't understand that the Church has database programmers; if they simply wanted every name in FamilySearch submitted, it would be a 5 minute task to write the code to dump them all into the print queue. It would also be more respectful to the families than to leave them to fall victim to one of these "win points with the Father without ever leaving your computer" types.

Edited June 30, 2013 by NightSG

[Meana]

You can branch out pretty far on the site and I can see how some people would want to do work for a distant line with the thought they did not have family in the church to do work for. However, saying that you are a close relative or had asked permission as in the case of your father is wrong. I hope everything works out for and keep us updated!

[lds2]

Meana - my deep sympathies with your disappointment! I can only imagine. I hope you gain a new valuable relationship with a "close" relative out of it.

I kind of had an opposite experience. I spent over a year doing genealogy research often spending 50 or more hours a week (often until 2 in the morning). Unfortunately, I was told that by using a certain software program that I was submitting names to the temple, but actually all I was doing was submitting into new.familysearch.

[NightSG]

You can branch out pretty far on the site and I can see how some people would want to do work for a distant line with the thought they did not have family in the church to do work for. However, saying that you are a close relative or had asked permission as in the case of your father is wrong. I hope everything works out for and keep us updated!

I would then have to wonder just who they thought entered all the information if not a family member. After all, that's why there's a "click to email" link next to each bit of data to contact the person who entered it, which, on my father's records, is my username which includes the same (reasonably uncommon) surname as his. It would hardly take Sherlock Holmes to figure out that they have a way to contact the closest living relative, or a Church member who would know that person right in front of them.

I really wish that the FamilySearch programmers would put in a little effort to prevent this; the records show he has a living son, the system already knows he was born within the "must have permission" timeframe, and that the son is a FamilySearch member. It should then use that information to contact the closest relative when someone else tries to reserve ordinances.

[lds2]

Meana - my deep sympathies with your disappointment! I can only imagine. I really hope you gain a new valuable relationship with a "close" relative out of it.

I kind of had an opposite experience. I spent over a year doing genealogy research often spending 50 or more hours a week (most often until 2 in the morning). Unfortunately, I was told that by using a certain software program that I was submitting names to the temple, but actually all I was doing was submitting into new family search.

When I discovered my mistake they had changed the rules, so not only did I have to go through all the records one by one again to submit them, but I had to see how I was related to them to see if I could still do their work.

I am still in the process of redoing the research and many of the names are their spouse's family and so I can no longer submit the names. All I can do is put them "out there" and hope that someone gets converted who can help them progress.

[NightSG]

Is there an e-mail address associated with that username? I e-mailed the person and got a response. She released all the name for me. The fact that someone is reserving names that they do not have permission to reserve though is troubling. Perhaps contact your Bishop to see if he knows who to contact to see if they can find out who is doing it.

Well, the person still hasn't bothered to reply to my emails, or to release any of the other names, but FHC did reassign my father to me. They also contacted the temple where dad's confirmation had been submitted in an attempt to stop it, but it had already been done by the time they called. The ordinances of at least two others born within the "must get permission" timeframe are already completed, having been reserved by the same username and their closest living relatives deny having given anyone permission.

This person's behavior has pretty much shot down any chance I might have had of getting any of my surviving relatives on that side interested in the Church. Someone else already took care of that on my mom's side by the same method, I just didn't catch any of it in time.

[applepansy]

The people to contact when there are issues are Family Search personnel. They can help via phone, chat or email. The other resource is your Ward's Family Search consultant. Bishops usually don't have the time to keep up with all the changes that are happening. That's why there are consultants in each ward.

The rule is if someone has been dead for 100 years you don't need permission from the nearest living relative.

I'm sorry someone didn't pay attention to the rules.