Temple Ready

Determining Which Names to Submit

• Immediate family members
• Direct-line ancestors (parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on, and their families)

You may also submit the names of the following who have been deceased for at least one year:

• Biological, adoptive, and foster family lines connected to your family.
• Collateral family lines (uncles, aunts, cousins, and their families)
• 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 how have the same last name and resided in the same are as your known ancestors.

Do not submit the names of persons not related to you, like famous people or holocaust victims.

You may submit the names of individuals who were close friends, this is the exception to them being related, and you should obtain permission from the individual's closest living relative. 

Determining What Ordinances to Perform 

• When ordinances are not needed (the FamilySearch site will tell you when they aren't needed, like children born after the mother and father are sealed and children who died before age 8.)
• Sealing couples with undocumented marriages 
• Deceased women married more than once
• Deceased person who had mental disabilities
• Persons who are presumed dead

Refer to Chapter 7 in the Membership Guide for more guidance on these issues.

Policies for Names for Temple Work
Before you perform ordinances for a deceased person born within the last 95 years, obtain permission from the closest living relative. Relatives may not want the ordinances performed or may want to perform the ordinances themselves. The closest living relatives are, in this order: a spouse, then adult children, then parents, then siblings. 


Information Needed for Temple Work

1. Individual must be deceased for at least 1 year.
2. Must provide at least the given name or surname.
3. Must provide the person's gender.
4. Enough information to uniquely identify the person.

5. For sealing to a spouse, you also need the given/surname of spouse.
6. For sealing to parents, you need the given/surname of at least the father. 

Example Proxy Temple Entry:

Name:                                John Jones
Gender:                             Male
Event & Date:                   Born 25 May 1840
Birthplace:                        Chardon, Geauga, Ohio

Submitting Names to the Temple

After you have found all the required information about an ancestry and it is entered into the FamilySearch Internet site, you are ready to prepare a Family Ordinance Request form.
This form will make it possible for temple ordinances to be performed for the person.

Go to FamilySearch site and select the temple ordinance that need to be provided for your ancestor. Select only as many ordinances as can be done in a reasonable amount of time. Then print a Family Ordinance Request form. Take the F.O.R. form with you to the temple, there a temple worker will print ordinances cards for you, and you can use the cards to do the ordinance work. 

After you have completed the temple ordinances for the individual, you can verify that the work has been recorded. Just look up the person's name on the FamilySearch Internet site. 

New Family Search Hint: Sharing names for Temple

Sharing family names for the temple hint: If you want an easy way to instantly share family names with friends and family, don’t mail them the cards—instead, e-mail the FOR (Family Ordinance Request). It’s simple. As one of the last steps in new.familysearch.org for printing the FOR (part of the name clearing process), you have the option to save the document as a PDF. 

If you pick that option, you can then send the PDF file you created as an e-mail attachment. If this explanation is confusing or the process seems difficult, just ask a computer savvy youth, family member or friend to walk you through it. By e-mailing the FOR, you can get it to the people instantly, and with the new system they don’t even have to send the cards back if you don’t want them to. The completed ordinance information will show up immediately on new.familysearch.org.