Ordinances: Cannot request- Not available.

LegacyUser

Kenny Mazzanti said: Ordinances: Cannot request- Not available. The statement is clear but leaves the patron wondering why? Are the ordinances already complete but not visible for some reason? Is it from a restricted area or group of people? Is it a past membership issue? A simply reason why would reduce multiple patrons submitting these ordinances for review.

LegacyUser

gasmodels said: All of the reasons you suggested could be involved. There is no way to answer the question from the Family Tree without contacting support. See the following article in the Help Center --- https://www.familysearch.org/help/hel.... In particular, it is unlikely that the reasons will ever be published because some of them are sensitive. Even the first line support people are not privy to the exact reason. They have to be escalated to another group. I personally would suggest to raise this issue by email rather than a phone call because person answering phone cannot provide a direct answer, they have to escalate.

LegacyUser

JimGreene said: If you go to the ordinances tab on the person page it will give you more detail. If all it says is that it is unavailable and that you need to contact support, it is because there is some sort of restriction on the record, or perhaps the person is still living. In that case for sure call support.  If there is a standardized date or place missing, it will give that reason right there on the person page. You only need to contact support in the first case, where it says that.

LegacyUser

Kenny Mazzanti said: This person's life was very well documented. Documentation was not the issue. it was something much more than a case of Needs More Information. He was a Catholic Priest who served on the island of Molokai along with our missionaries in the 1800's at the lepers colony. He was not married and had no children so, no descendants to do his work. Records get restricted for a variety of reasons. Not Available usually suggests something is missing. That can usually be corrected by adding a date, place or event. The question in this case is why the "Cannot Request"? The patron, in this case, just wanted to know why he, or anyone else-like a relative- was not even allowed to even ask? The patron just wants to make sure this wonderful man had the opportunity of receiving his ordinances. There are historically documented individuals, Holocaust victims, persons born before 1500, etc for whom we cannot request ordinances. We could take the mystery out of the equation by simply stating "historical person- ordinances complete". Then we know. Making this simple statement would reduce the number of calls to CS Missionaries, who then have to document the case and escalate it for review by other missionaries who have to research the case, and then write a response to the patron every time the question arises for each individual so noted.

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: Or we could just trust that there is a good reason for the notation and accept that it is probably a private matter that is not our concern. If the person is not a direct ancestor it is not our responsibility and really none of our business.

From your description of the individual, his ordinances have probably been completed several times by well meaning individuals and the presence of ordinances on his record were probably highly offensive to the Catholic Church and could be contributory to why some Catholic churches will not let members of our church anywhere near their records. Thinking that he was a wonderful man is not a justification for violating church policy and submitting people that we should not.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: When my wife and I were serving in the Church and Family History Mission, she was assigned to deal with people who were entering names of living persons, including all of the Cardinals of the Vatican. Eventually, the situation escalated to the point where the person(s) had their FS accounts restricted.

This is a problem that the Church continues to face, which is why the 20-minute timeout still exists. If you ever have a computer in a public setting, where you may be away from it for several minutes, make sure you have not activated the two-week auto-reconnect feature. Sign out and then sign back in without checking the feature.