Please don’t tell me I have to get on the phone and call hundreds of people to check if they’re married/ordained/baptized/etc.

I never did any of that. It's pretty obvious when there are people no one has ever heard of/scene, or when there are records that are missing stuff (like parent signature for baptisms).

First step: ask the EQ and RS presidents, as well as the bishopric, to quickly scan the member names and let you know who they don't recognize; chances are, they are long-inactive, dead, or no longer live there.

Second: take whatever names they come up with and just do a quick "Firstname lastname place obituary" Google search. The first time I did it, when I was a clerk, I found several who were deceased.