110 year rule
I thought I would be allowed to reserve for temple work anyone over 110 years old.
Another consultant told me no..only if I am related to them. so
If I am not related to my husband's family members who are over 110 years old, and my husband is recently deceased, does that mean I cannot do the temple work for those ancestors, although they have been reserved for some time?
Answers
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I read all of the help sections before writing to you.. I still don't have an answer to my question.
Am I allowed to do my husbands ancestors or not?
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Did you open the link above from Amy? If not, here is what it says:
Temple ordinances are sacred and should be treated with respect. Please reserve ordinances for individuals only if you are related to them.
A letter from the First Presidency dated February 29, 2012, states, "Our pre-eminent obligation is to seek out and identify our own ancestors. Those whose names are submitted for proxy temple ordinances should be related to the submitter."
You are responsible to submit names of the individuals below:
- Immediate family members (spouse, children, siblings, and parents).
- Direct-line ancestors (parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on, and their families).
You can also submit the names of the individuals below:
- Biological, adoptive, and foster family lines connected to your family.
- Collateral family lines (uncles, aunts, cousins, and their families).
- Descendants of your ancestors.
- Your own descendants.
- Possible ancestors, meaning individuals who have a probable family relationship that cannot be verified because the records are inadequate, such as those who have the same last name and resided in the same area as your known ancestors.
Related policies
Temple ordinances for unrelated people
Temple ordinances for deceased people born in the last 110 years (110-year policy)
Can I do temple ordinances for my aunts, uncles, and cousins?
Can I do ordinances for people born before A.D. 1500?
External links
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I believe it is nonsense to say that a person is not related to a spouses family. I believe it also indicates that a husband or wife is not related to their spouse.
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You might think of it as a drop of blood. Granted , you and your spouse don't share that blood, except thought the marriage vows. But you are not married to your in-laws, and unless they turn out to be your 42nd, cousin, ( or some such) relationship, then it only a kindness to offer their own kin the opportunity to provide those Sacred Blessings to their family line.
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Did the two of you have children? Help your children out with their research and help them out with the temple work they need to get done. After all, unfortunately, one of these days they will be on their own to carry on this work. Better teach them now what they need to be doing. If you did not have children, then I would have a discussion about this with your temple president.
It is the policy that we are only to reserve and do temple work for people with whom we share a common direct ancestor and their spouses. This is the definition of a collateral line and descendants of ancestors. And the most recent direction we have been given is that we are to complete all ordinances for those spouses, including sealing the spouses to their parents even though we are not to any ordinances for the spouses' parents.
But there is a difference between not doing the temple work of our 2nd cousin's husband's ancestors and doing the work for our spouse's ancestors. So, again, I would ask your temple president and follow his advice.
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@lanamarierankin1 After all of this discussion, you may want to see if you are related to the ancestors of your deceased husband. Using your husband's parents or grandparents as a starting points, go to their detail pages and click on the View My Relationship in the upper right hand corner of the detail page right above Research Help. You may be related.
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Thank you for all of your suggestions. Here is what I’m thinking. Even though I did all the research, I’m not allowed to reserve or perform any ordinances of my deceased husband s ancestors unless I happened to also be related to them. But my children or grand children may reserve and preform the ordinances. Also my husbands sister could or her children could reserve and preform the ordinances. Am I right in that way of thinking?
so what if I just shared the names I have reserved with the temple. Can anyone then pick the names and do the work?
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@lanamarierankin1 IMO the best course of action would be to Unreserve and notify your children, grandchildren and your husband's sister or her children of your pending action and let them Reserve them. This avoids any issue of whether the reservation falls within the current policies.
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So Chase, I could do that. But why does my husband's ancestors come up on Ordinance Ready if I'm not allowed to do them? And if I choose to turn them over to "Share with the Temple" what are the chances that they will come up in Ordinance Ready again?
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Right now, if you have the the names reserved and you run Ordinances Ready, you are just getting the names you already have reserved. Ordinances Ready looks for names in these areas:
- Your own reservation list.
- Names you have shared to the temple list.
- Names others have shared to the temple list - for whom you are related.
- Names within the Tree, not yet reserved - for whom you are related.
- Names shared to the temple list - for whom you do not share a relationship.
Once you release these names, they will not come up in Ordinances Ready unless you are related to them.
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I’ve read these before except for number 5. I don’t understand that one
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#5 is the equivalent of going to the temple without any ordinance cards and being given one there. It's just that you print the card instead of the temple.
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I understand that now. So it doesn’t matter who the proxy is. But it does matter who reserved the ordinances because that has to be a bloodline relative. And if I shared my husbands reserved cards with the temple they would only show up on some ones Ordinances Ready page if they are related to him which would be my children grandchildren or his nieces or their children. . Do I have that right?
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Since you are not related to your husband's relatives, you should not reserve their ordinances. If you have them reserved, you should release them. Ordinances Ready will find them in the Tree for those people who are related to them.
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I am the only one doing research on my husbands side, but fortunately my kids, grandkids and his cousins are on board to help complete the ordinances. But I have over 400 reserved, and at least half of them are his. I'm not going to take the time to unreserve them, or send them to share with the temple, because they would just come right back to my family most likely. I'll just spread the cards out to those family members who will get the work done quickly. And good news, I'm a 13th cousin to my husband anyway...so I'll check "find my relationship" with his ancestors now to see how many I am actually related to...most I hope. Thanks for everyone's ideas and input.
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I have learned over the years, by following the inspired guidelines set forth in doing this great work, blessings do flow abundantly. Our efforts will be counted even if others reserve names and perform those vital ordinances.
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FamilySearch has fairly new feature called Family Groups. You can create a family group and invite other family members to join the group. In the group you can share names that you have reserved for temple work. You might consider starting a family group with your husbands relatives and your children so that you can share the ordinances with them in that manner.
At the bottom of each of these articles there are links to other articles that may be of help if you do decide to start a family group.
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Guess what, @lanamarierankin1 and everyone? FamilySearch considers you related to your husband's family! When I read the comments on this thread saying a person is not related to her spouse's family, it didn't seem right. So I mentioned it to my sister, and she says that Family Tree shows her as being related to her husband's ancestors through him. (As some on this thread have mentioned, a person can be related to their spouse's family in other ways besides through their spouse. But for purposes of lanamarierankin's question, let's focus on being related through one's spouse.)
My sister's husband is living, so just in case that made a difference, I tried this in beta with a test account. In the image below, the test account is Katrina Bescoby (living) and I added a deceased husband to her. Then I went to her husband's great-great grandfather and clicked View My Relationship and here's the result.
So it does look like women are considered related to their husband's ancestors and can do temple work for them.
And in case you're wondering if that works for descendancy research, it does:
This made me so happy! :) lanamarierankin, I hope it's helpful to you too.
Kathryn
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Something very bizarre is going on with my posts to this thread. I have tried about 5 times to make a post. It looks like it works, and then when I refresh the page my post has vanished. It may be because it contained images.
When I read the posts above telling @lanamarierankin1 that it was not within policy for her to do temple work for her husband's family, it didn't seem right. I mentioned it to my sister, and she said that her husband's relatives show up as related to her in Family Tree--through him, not some other way.
I have two screenshots that illustrate this. It works for ancestors and descendants. But apparently I can't include them in this post. So if you'd like a copy, please let me know and I'll get them to you some other way.
Anyway, the bottom line is that it is within policy for a woman to do temple work for her husband's relatives. I was so happy when I discovered this. lanamarierankin, I hope it's helpful to you!
Kathryn
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I've read here in the past the View My Relationship is not a reliable way to check whether one should do temple work for someone because of the way it crosses spousal lines and goes through any type of relationship such as guardian and should not be used to justify reserving ordinances we should not be reserving.
We are to follow the guidelines in the church handbook which only says see the article on FamilySearch: https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/individuals-for-whom-i-can-request-temple-ordinances as posted here above. And this does not say we are related to our spouses ancestors.
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Gordon, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I respectfully disagree, particularly in this case. I've actually heard the opposite of what you described above--that we should only do work for someone if View My Relationship shows a relationship.
I heard Ron Tanner explain once in a public lecture how View My Relationship works. He acknowledged that there are many ways relationships can be calculated, and I believe he said their algorithm chooses the most direct route (this is something I'd like to verify with him to make sure I'm remembering correctly).
I checked multiple scenarios before making my post above, and in every case individuals show as related to their spouse's ancestors. I can't think that's a fluke or a problem of crossing lines.
In fact, I figured out how I can (hopefully!) share those screenshots I mentioned. I put them in this Google Doc:
Notice that the relationships are direct--no crossing of lines.
You mentioned the Help Center article. You're right that it doesn't explicitly say we're related to our spouse's lines through marriage, but it also doesn't say we aren't.
There's so much misinformation floating around that probably it's not wise to rely on what either you or I have read in other people's posts in the past about View My Relationship :) And sure, the View My Relationship feature is only as good as the data Family Tree gives it. But it's the best we have. In my mind, if Family Tree consistently says that a person is related to his/her spouse's family, that's solid evidence that a person can do temple work for his or her spouse's relatives.
It really isn't any different than a person asking his/her spouse to do temple work for someone of the opposite sex on their lines which they can't do.
So, given the fact that it makes no sense to tell a person they can't do temple work on their spouse's lines, and given that Family Tree shows people are related to their spouse's family through marriage, I have to conclude it's within policy for individuals to do temple work on their spouse's lines.
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P. S. I think it's possible that people are getting confused about a similar but different situation.
Here's the different situation: say I'm doing descendancy research and I find someone who married my cousin. I can do the temple work for the person who married my cousin, because they're related by marriage, but I am not supposed to do temple work for the ancestors of the person who married my cousin (unless, of course, they're actually related to me through a different line).
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Here is Ron Tanner's commentary on this question from RootsTech 2019: https://www.rootstech.org/video/whats-new-on-familysearch?lang=eng with the discussion of who we are authorized to reserve work for starting at about 38:40 and the specific question about our spouse's ancestors at about 42:10.
In this he states that our spouse's line is equivalent to our own line unless our spouse tells us not to do work on that line or unless we are not longer married to that spouse. I take this to mean that we can do work for our current living spouse's ancestors not because we are related to them but because we have the implied consent, which can be revoked, of that spouse. When our spouse is deceased, I would say that implied consent is no longer there.
I do wish someone with the actual authority to do so would give instructions to have the help center article updated in regards to this specific issue.
I agree that we should not be doing work for people unless View My Relationship shows a proper relationship, but View My Relationship is not sufficient. It can show improper relationships. There was a time when it did not show our spouse at all or that spouse's ancestors. I have assumed that feature was added not to authorize temple work but just because so many people requested it.
Moderators: there has to be some of you that know people at FamilySearch that have connections to the church's temple committee and could find out what the policy really is on this matter and get the help center article updated. Could we please get a real answer?
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That statement by Ron about the equivalency of the spousal line in my mind is kind of a outlier and I would like to hear a better explanation from him because it is contrary to the many statements he has made in the past where he has said that we cannot go up the spousal line. Gordon's explanation differentiating between Living vs Deceased spouse may be correct?
How, maybe there has been a shift in policy different than previous KAs & policy statements have been, I don't know. IMO the statement by Kathryngrz that "the bottom line is that it is within policy for a woman to do temple work for her husband's relatives." cannot be substantiated by the fact that View My Relationship shows some type of relationship. I’ll need a much more direct and clear statement by someone in authority before I can accept that inference.
I agree with Gordon, MODs please help clarify or refer this thread to someone who can help or maybe Ron Tanner if you're listening please help.
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Hi all, I'm short on time, so just a couple of quick comments--first, the duplicate posts above are due to the Community manager seeing my issues and working to restore the posts. I'm impressed that she was watching and took initiative to help solve the problem. Later when I have time I'll work with her to get the duplicates removed :)
Chas, in regards to what you said about "not going up the spousal line," please see my post of Jan 30 about two similar but different situations being confused. Going up the spousal line of someone who married into your family (to whom you are not related by blood or marriage) is not the same as working on your spouse's line, since you are related to your spouse and all your spouse's blood ancestors and decendants through marriage.
Gordon, since we believe in eternal marriage, it doesn't make sense that a spouse's death would mean revoking of implied consent. Nothing has changed in the marriage except that one person has gone to the other side.
Finally, from long association with Ron Tanner and others at FamilySearch, I know they're very careful to support Church policy in the Family Tree interface. I find it almost impossible to believe that they would go against policy when creating the View My Relationship interface in Family Tree. VMR has shown spouses as related to their spouse's lines for years. Surely if it were a mistake or against policy, it would have been caught and fixed by now.
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All excellent points and all illustrate why it would be very nice for someone with the proper authority to provide an actual answer. Neither my point of view and belief nor anyone else's who is writing here really counts at all.
1) I agree that going up our spouse's line is completely different than going up our 2nd cousin's spousal line because our spouse is right there giving us permission, even if just by not telling us not to, each time we print a card.
2) When we get permission to reserve ordinances, say for a deceased friend, we are required to get permission on a person by person basis. We can't get one time blanket permission to do all of that friend's family we decide to do. If our spouse is deceased, our spouse is not there to give permission, implied or explicit, one individual at a time.
3) FamilyTree lets us do things that are against policy. I can do a random search, click on a random person, print a card, and do his ordinances today. The Perform Next filter has the well know flaw of showing sealings of children to parents when the parents have had not been sealed as a couple. There are plenty of policy statements which state that we should perform ordinances in the proper order, as Ron Tanner referenced in the video I referenced, with the only exceptions being when sealing a spouse we are not related to to that spouse's parents and when given sealings at the temple. Whether we should do child to parent sealings out of order when given them through Ordinances Ready seems to be a bit of cloudy issue at this point. One Help Center article states "It is preferred that sealings be done after individual ordinances, but it is not required."
This will be an ongoing debate without any resolution until the official policy is clarified and actually addresses this question and provides an answer.
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Once your husband passes you are no longer able to do his side of the family members. Sorry but that is the rule. BUT your child if you had children with him yes they can do the work. Then if they and you are part of a family group and they post those ancestors needing the work to that group and you are a part of that group then yes you can do the work they post to that group.
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