> Occasionally missionaries might receive a request to locate an inactive member whose active family doesn't know where to find them I've seen that too, though

> Occasionally missionaries might receive a request to locate an inactive member whose active family doesn't know where to find them I've seen that too, though as I understand it, those only come from (standard membership) records that are moved from a previous ward (not removed) and the leadership doesn't know which new ward the person should geographically belong to (they might only have a rough geographic idea). The intention is one of trying to help provide assistance and support to people who are - at least in terms of the official records - still members of the church. That won't happen with people whose records have been officially removed from the church. As for a "notebook of paper records", unfortunately there's very little that can be done to completely avoid inaccuracies in those, but the church has been working to make more of those things happen electronically (which would solve the issue of not being synchronized). It may not be in place everywhere, but that's the direction it's going, so it will definitely improve.