sign in question

Sjohnson54

I was recently told that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints should always use the tab "sign in with church membership" instead of just putting in your password and username. However, if under the setting for your account it says member of the church. What difference does it make? I was told there are a lot more records open if you use the tab. Not just temple ordinances, because they show up either way. Is there really a difference or a benefit of signing in one way or the other?

Caringandsharing

Thank your for your interesting question.

It is not necessary to always sign in with church membership.

Sign in with church membership is a recovery option if you have forgotten your username or password.

Here are some Help Articles that have more details about this option.

https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/i-forgot-my-familysearch-password-or-username

Also see Help Article titled: How much information does Family Tree pull from my Church Account?

Hope this information helps answer your question.

CDBurk

@Sjohnson54

Accounts were recently split at FamilySearch. Individuals who have Church accounts to access the tools that are available at the Churchofjesuschrist.org website will no longer be able to use those credentials to automatically sign into FamilySearch if they change their username or password at the Church website. Previously, your login information worked across ALL Church websites including FamilySearch.org, but the Church website and FamilySearch no longer "talk" to each other if you make changes to your sign-in information at either location.

For this reason, a suggestion has been made that if you have problems signing into FamilySearch.org, you can use the blue bar under the normal Sign In button to access your Member account through the Church credentials.

All users can still follow the process described in the following knowledge article if they need to recover a username or reset a password to allow them access to FamilySearch.org since that is the location where Members can view and work with LDS Data, but it is much easier for many guests to simply use their Church credentials when they have login issues at the FamilySearch website.

https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/i-forgot-my-familysearch-password-or-username

I hope this additional information explains why you may have recently received the counsel about using the Sign in with Church Account bar...it simplifies things for most of our users.

Thank you for your question, and for working in the Community to find a solution.

MaureenE123

As a non church member, I can definitely say that in the not too distant past I have been told church members have access to more historical records, both indexed records and digitised microfilms, than non church members. I assume this situation still applies currently.

Church members can also access Partner websites such as Ancestry on their home computers for free, I believe.

A van Helsdingen

Yes, Latter Day Saints have access to more records more conveniently (i.e. at home instead of having to go to a FHC or Affiliate Library). But there are still plenty of records that LDS do not have complete at home access to. They also have free subscriptions to many websites such as Ancestry.com and FindMyPast, but these subscriptions do not give free access to absolutely everything on those websites.

Information in the FSFT about ordinances is never disclosed to non-LDS members. This means that non-LDS often make edits that cause problems relating to ordinances without realizing.