What Names Can I Submit for Temple Ordinances

The question of which of our ancestors and relatives qualify for Temple ordinances comes up frequently. The FamilySearch.org Family Tree program has evolved to the point where most of these questions are answered by the program itself. Those who are available to receive the Temple Ordinances are marked with green icons when you have registered with an LDS Account. However, not all of the green icons mean that you personally can participate in the ordinances for that person. If you click on a green icon for a person with whom you are not related, you will likely get a message telling you that you are not related. But this is only the starting point for understanding the complex system of relationships and possible exceptions to this general rule. The general rule is that you can only do ordinances for individuals only if you are related to them.

To start, here is a link to the official statement from the FamilySearch.org Help Center: https://www.familysearch.org/ask/salesforce/viewArticle?urlname=Individuals-for-whom-I-can-request-temple-ordinances&lang=en (you will need to sign in to the FamilySearch.org website with an LDS account to see the article).

The biggest exception to the "related" rule says that you CAN submit names for adoptive, and foster family lines connected to your family in addition to your biological lines. So that means that despite the fact that my Great-grandfather was adopted, I can pursue submitting names for his ancestors just as if I were biologically related to him.

Another exception to the rule involves the Ordinances Ready app. In some cases, if the program cannot find a qualified relative, the suggested ordinance or ordinances will be provided for a person whose name has already been shared with the temples. Some of these people may not be relatives but they have been waiting for some time for the ordinances to be done and deserve a chance to have them done.

In addition, the green icons do not assure the users of the Family Tree that further research will not determine that there are duplicate entries. All that is assured by the green icons is that the person has a name, a date and a place for an event. Sometimes doing a little research will quickly reveal that there are one or more duplicates and that the Temple work has already been done. However, in my opinion, this is not a reason for avoiding green icons or trying to discourage others from clicking on them and taking the names to the temples.

You might view this position as a radical departure from the positions I have taken in the past on the subject of green icons but times have changed. There has been a huge increase in the accuracy of the FamilySearch program itself and the tools and features of the program are doing a reasonably good job of catching the duplicates and the alternative of discouraging users from learning more about the program likely outweighs the diminishing number of duplicates being processed. If there is still an issue with duplicates, and I am convinced that there is, then those people who have the skills to detect and merge the duplicates should be working to correct the Family Tree.

There is two other exceptions to the rules about requesting temple ordinances: the 110 Year Rule and the same area rule.

The 110 Year Rule is found at this link: https://www.familysearch.org/ask/salesforce/viewArticle?urlname=Process-for-110-year-Temple-Request&lang=en_US (likewise, you will need to sign in to the FamilySearch.org website with an LDS account to see the article).

The rule about doing the ordinance work for people in the same area has been overly used to do private extraction programs and extracting names in large geographic areas. The exception reads as follows: 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.

This is usually invoked by people who decide to do everyone with the same or similar surname in a town or parish assuming that they are all related. The issue of whether or not this is appropriate needs to be dealt with on an individual basis.