How the church (does not) removes your record after you resign

I used to to work in the records department of the COB so I know how this works. When you resign your record is marked for deletion, they just never run the update that actually remove you from their database. It is like they put your records in a permanent recycle bin. (For windows users) This allows the church to legally say your records have been removed ,while they still have access to them and count them in membership totals

The developers probably never added the functionality for actually deleting records...

Thanks for the info. I hope it's OK, I posted a reference to this post on my thread.
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,341475,341587#msg-341587

Yes and No. When you resign your member record is marked as deleted this removes as you as an active member. However since the church never actually purges the "deleted records" the "exmo" records are still in the database. When they do a membership count they count all records in the database even the "deleted ones". So even resigned members still count toward membership totals. This is just another way for the church to inflate it's membership numbers.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/2011 05:36PM by Demon of Kolob.

Demon of Kolob Wrote:
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>


So, you are not counted on the local level, in any geographic ward, however, you are still in the data base in the grand total. That is what I have said for years.

I know that when members resign, their files are not completely removed from the database. So just to be clear, that is not my concern here.

But if resigned members are STILL COUNTED (!) in the inflated “total 14 million members” claim, then

1) No wonder the church claims it is growing... if it never subtracts from its member total to account for those who are no longer members!

2) A major reason for officially resigning is lost.

2) I never cease to be amazed at the extent to which TSCC lies and covers up the truth, while pretending to be so holy and pure!

Anyway, thank you D of K for sharing your honest experience as a ward clerk. Unpleasant truth is preferable to lies!

I was not a ward clerk , I worked as a records clerk in the COB in the 90's

Thanks!

That is why for years I said it was pointless to tender a resignation. By so doing, we are admitting that there is SOMETHING to resign from. We all know that they have the same power and authority over us as the local grocery store.

HOWEVER.....

I still sent mine in a year ago because I needed to make the point to somebody. SOMEBODY in that office opened that letter and read it.

I still recommend people to resign ,it gets you off the records on the local level and sends a message to the COB



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/2011 07:28PM by Demon of Kolob.

Demon of Kolob Wrote:
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> I still recommend people to resign ,it gets you
> off the records on the local level and send a
> message to the COB


I concur with this statement!!

+1

Resigning removes the records from the local ward and stake. This is a big deal , it takes you off the radar of the local leaders. Some of these leaders are nuts, I have had bad experiences with local bishops before I resigned. When I resigned the bishop tried to get me fired. (Story for another time)

First of all, LDS Inc. needs to inflate its numbers and covertly counting deleted 'records' is a handy little underhanded way of doing it.

Second and more seriously, if you rejoin LDS Inc. they wanna know so that you can't rise in the hierarchy. There's no way they are just going to forget about your resignation.

I was doing genealogy once and came across the hardware store account of a gggg something uncle who died in the 1860s in Iowa. It was part of his probate file.

The place you were born, the place you die, and most places in between have permanent records of what happened. Why anyone is even remotely surprised by this amazes me. Every church you have ever formally joined still has a record of that, somewhere. It's the way the world works.

I moved back to Utah a few months ago, and the gas company still had the serial number of my gas meter from 28 years ago on file under my name.

Just assume records are forever.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/2011 07:16PM by Brother Of Jerry.

It doesn't bother me that they keep a record showing that I was a member at one time. What I dislike and find decietfull is that they are applying resigned members to thier grand total membership count.

Would you testify? Perhaps get an injunction against the church so they would stop this practice?

Yes I would but I worked at COB back in the 90's and my current source could not testify ,he still works there.

Yep. Same here. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't tracked down anymore. But I still felt I was sending them a message. I didn't really care how they considered it, as long as they got the message. It was my way of saying, "I will no longer be considered a part of your organization.

What M-Fing liars. But, really, who would expect any less given that the whole house of cards was started by a liar con man?

The morg will never stop the con job.

14 million. My ass.

DoK, are the records of those excommunicated handled in the same way and counted as members?

I have heard that they will count him as a member until the age of 110 yr.

I am thinking of writing a letter to membership records and telling them that he is dead and they should not be counting him on their membership rolls anymore.

Will they ignore my letter or will I get a response?

In early 2006, John Dehlin of MormonStories.org interviewed Palmer, after local Morg leaders had subjected him to a 'court of love' for writing the 'faith'-busting book, "An Insider's View of Mormon Origins" (ref. http://signaturebooks.com/2010/11/excerpt-an-insiders-view-of-mormon-origins/ ).

In the last part ("Episode 4" - http://mormonstories.org/?p=92 ) of the interview, Palmer told Dehlin that he had it on good authority that Greg Dodge, who has overseen membership resignations for years, had to increase his staff five-fold to keep up with the volume and 100K people annually were leaving the church.

This website has been online for ~15 years, I believe. PostMormon.org began in '07. In the past decade and a half of the Internet Age, 100's of 1,000's of people have liberated themselves from cultic Mormonism and resigned.

But from the 'true' membership records of the Mormon Church, which has a well-established history of deceiving people for its own benefit, you'd never know it.

I've been on RfM since the turn of the century and many of us have been waiting to learn these particulars. I thank you!

Mormons think they're clever to pull stunts like this and don't care that they're being deceitful since they think it's for a good cause. LOL

http://tech.lds.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-5716.html

"The Stake President should have a copy of the Report of Church Disciplinary Action form from the excommunication. This form has a copy of the membership number on it. If he does not have a copy of the original form, he can request it from the Office of the First Presidency (CHI, 119)."

So excommunicated members are still tracked. Why would the 'resigned' members be different?

I know this for a fact because I attempted to obtain some genealogical information off of the LDS website. When I asked why I could not do so, a member of the genealogical department at SLC returned my call.

I found out that my membership number is still available and within the LDS system but is "coded" somehow to reflect the excommunication. I'm not sure if a couple of the numbers were changed or some letters or numbers added to it. But, yes, I am still within the LDS system.

I ordered a copy of my patriarchal blessing which required my membership number. The on-line system wouldn't accept the number. So I requested one as a non-member. I received a call back from someone there whom asked me for my membership number. I verbally gave it to her over the phone. Voila! I received a copy of my patriarchal blessing in the mail a few days later.

I now have an LDS "account" in my name which I could not obtain prior to receiving my PB. I'm not sure if this is a slip up within their system or not.

Do to being exed, I really should not be counted as a "member" or the LDS rolls. I realize that they (like other organizations) keep track of members whom leave the fold. Apparently, I'm still counted. Go figure!

They think some day you might come back. Then they can easily restore your record. And there are people who resign and then do return.

And they can keep a watchful eye on you if you come back, making sure you are never in much of a position to harm the organization.

I mean really, how hard is it to create a record in the first place?

There ought to be laws in the land that say that when you formally dissolve your membership in a group that they have to erase all membership records. Only the state should have that power of permanent record. Of course the church hierarchs are such fetishists of records that they would only give up such data from their cold dead hands.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/15/2011 10:55AM by derrida.

A mormon guy who seems otherwise normal accepts the church propaganda about numbers of members and all of their other myths. He takes on Christopher Hitchens.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705394190/A-response-to-Christopher-Hitchens-after-his-latest-attack-on-Mormonism.html?pg=1

Excerpt below:

But Hitchens is at it again. Only a couple of weeks ago, he called my Latter-day Saint beliefs “weird” and “sinister” in an article in the online magazine Slate.

He says we Latter-day Saints have a “supreme leader,” that we can be ordered to “shun” anyone leaving the faith, and that hefty donations are appreciated. He creates the impression of a coercive religion — a cult, really.

Of course, few Latter-day Saints care much about Hitchens. They’ve certainly seen worse than him throughout their history. And his arguments, to those who pay attention, are little more than warmed-over Fawn Brodie from 1945....

No wonder mormons believe the lie about the number of members, and no wonder they spread that lie far and wide. They'll believe anything their leaders tell them.

Here's another excerpt from the article taking Christopher Hitchens to task. This time the mormon author drinks the koolaid about mormon leaders living humbly, and about unpaid clergy.

"Consider the implication he makes that Latter-day Saints make their leaders wealthy. Look at President Thomas S. Monson. Were President Monson running a Fortune 500 company of the complexity of the church, he’d be compensated in the millions with stock options and have several homes around the world. He’d fly in his own private jet to Davos and Aspen and spend his weekends in the Berkshires.

But President Monson lives modestly in a Salt Lake suburb, a lifestyle not much different from most American Latter-day Saints. When he flies on a private jet, it is on one supplied by a friend, not to Aspen, but to meet with Latter-day Saints.

Many of his close counselors are doing far less well financially than they might have in business.

I am reminded that President Eyring gave up a promising career at the Stanford Business School to take up church service. My close colleague here in Rexburg, President Kim Clark, sacrificed career, salary and perks at Harvard to take over BYU-Idaho .

That is true of many of the church’s leading brethren. They sacrifice and don’t profit from church service. Anyone who chooses to pay attention would see that...."

Demon of Kolob, does the LDS Church count proxy baptized people as members?

How do they record the necrodunking? How do they count them when it comes to membership?

OnceMore Wrote:
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> Demon of Kolob, does the LDS Church count proxy
> baptized people as members?

From what I can find out, that is in a separate place in the data base. Anybody know if that is correct?
>
> How do they record the necrodunking? How do they
> count them when it comes to membership?

Again, I have been told those proxy baptisms are not counted as active members and are counted separately.
Anybody know if that is correct.

They are counted separately and handled by different departments. Member records keeps the records of members, exmos ,etc. Proxy baptisms records are kept by the family history (Genealogy) department as part the church genealogy records.
I will have to post later when I have more time how the records keeping of temple ordinances broke down when they started automating the process while I was working for the COB.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/15/2011 01:45PM by Demon of Kolob.

Thank you, SusieQ and Demon of Kolob.

Information I found while Googling confirms that Mormons have an official index of proxy baptisms, and that index is separate from membership roles.

Excerpt from one site:
Th"is author was among the first genealogists to discover the names of thousands of Jewish Holocaust victims in the International Genealogical Index (the “IGI”) 1, the official Mormon index of proxy baptisms for the dead, and quickly exposed this misguided practice."

More here: http://www.jewishgen.org/infofiles/ldsagree.html

Demon of Kolob wrote: "I will have to post later when I have more time how the records keeping of temple ordinances broke down when they started automating the process while I was working for the COB."

Thank you in advance. We'd all like to see that.

I've not seen the LD$ Church run other projects with ethics or accuracy as primary goals, nor with consistency being maintained. Why would record keeping be any different?

In fact, I doubt that their International Genealogical Index is as accurate as claimed.

OnceMore Wrote:
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>
> In fact, I doubt that their International
> Genealogical Index is as accurate as claimed.

I know it's not. We have gotten copies of records in the past and asked to correct any errors. Often there are many.
People are not infallible. They make errors.