A Guide to Mormon Family History Sources

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sperry, Kip.

A guide to Mormon family history sources / Kip Sperry.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

9781618589750

1. Mormons—Genealogy—Handbooks, manuals, etc. 2. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints—Genealogy—Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Title.

CS36.M67S66 2007

929’.1072—dc22

2007029642

Copyright © 2007

The Generations Network, Inc.

Published by Ancestry Publishing, a division of The Generations Network, Inc. 360 West 4800 North Provo, Utah 84604 www.ancestry.com

All Rights Reserved.

All brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages for review.

First Printing 2007

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America

Cover images by Glen S. Hopkinson www.glenhopkinson.com

Front: Zion’s March

Back: Pioneer Morning

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1 - HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

CHAPTER 2 - BEGINNING YOUR RESEARCH

CHAPTER 3 - INDEXES, FINDING AIDS, AND GUIDES

CHAPTER 4 - COMPILED AND PRINTED RECORDS

CHAPTER 5 - ORIGINAL RECORDS

CHAPTER 6 - MIGRATION, EMIGRATION, AND IMMIGRATION RECORDS

CHAPTER 7 - COMPUTER RESOURCES AND DATABASES

CHAPTER 8 - INTERNET SITES

CHAPTER 9 - PERIODICALS, NEWSLETTERS, AND NEWSPAPERS

APPENDIX A - ABBREVIATIONS, ACRONYMS, AND TERMS

APPENDIX B - ADDRESSES

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PREFACE

Since its organization on 6 April 1830 at Fayette, Seneca County, New York, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as the Mormon Church or LDS Church) has created many types of genealogical and historical records. The office of Church Recorder was created the same day the LDS Church was founded, with Oliver Cowdery appointed as the first Church Recorder.¹

Original records created by the LDS Church since the early nineteenth century include unit histories (histories of branches, wards, stakes, and missions), LDS Church census records (1914–60), church statistics, deceased members’ records, emigration and immigration records, membership records, minutes of meetings, missionary records, patriarchal blessings of individuals, priesthood records, temple records, and vital records, among others. Printed records created by the LDS Church include biographical sketches, unit histories, newspapers, periodicals, and many others. Electronic resources include computer databases, Internet sites, CD-ROMs, and DVD-ROMs. These and other family history and historical records are described in this guidebook. Many indexes to genealogical and historical records, as well as finding aids and reference sources, are also described.

Many non-LDS Church records, such as civil records, also contain references to Latter-day Saints. These include biographies, Canadian Border Crossings (1895–1954), cemetery records and gravestone inscriptions, census population schedules, church records of other denominations, court and legal documents, directories (such as city directories), divorce records, family Bible records, funeral home records, genealogies, immigration records and passenger lists, land and property records, lineage and hereditary societies, local histories (for example, town and county histories), manuscript collections, military records, naturalization and citizenship papers, newspapers, passport applications, periodicals (historical and genealogical), school records, tax lists, town records, vital records (civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths), wills and probate records, and many others. Descriptions of these records have generally been excluded from this guidebook since they are adequately discussed in other texts.²

Following an introduction, a historical background and chronology of historical events, and a chapter on beginning family history research, this guidebook continues with chapter 3, which describes indexes to Mormon records and finding aids, such as card indexes and personal name indexes; chapter 4 outlines compiled sources and tips for how to use them; chapter 5 gives details regarding original records; and chapter 6 identifies migration, emigration, and immigration sources. Also included are chapters describing computer resources and databases of interest to Mormon researchers; a list of Mormon-related Internet sites; and a list of periodicals, newsletters, and newspapers. Appendixes include a list of abbreviations, acronyms, and terms; and addresses of repositories of Mormon materials. The book concludes with a bibliography of LDS sources and an index.

With only a few exceptions, descriptions of the following types of records are generally excluded from this guidebook:³

Account books

Autobiographies

Biographies and biographical sketches

Books of remembrance

Civil records (including civil vital records)

Controversial and pejorative works

Correspondence and letters

Diaries

Doctrinal works

Family Bibles

Family newsletters

Financial reports of LDS Church units

Genealogies and family histories of specific families

Journals

Memoirs

Newspapers (general interest newspapers, such as the Chicago Tribune and New York Times, and so on)

Narratives

Oral histories

Photographs

Pioneer emigration rosters

Records pertaining to specific individuals, such as a life sketch

Reminiscences

Statistical reports of LDS Church units

The Family History Library in Salt Lake City has published several valuable resource guides and research outlines, both in paper copy and on the Internet. Foremost among these titles is Tracing LDS Families Research Outline, an overview of LDS Church resources and a summary of LDS records available at the Family History Library.⁴ Utah Research Outline and United States Research Outline are also useful references for a study of American genealogical records.⁵

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Appreciation is extended to the archivists, historians, reference librarians, and researchers who provided assistance in compiling information for this guidebook—especially those at Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah; LDS Church Archives and Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah; Community of Christ Library–Archives, Independence, Missouri; and the Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

The author would like to thank the following individuals who provided invaluable assistance for this book:

Susan Easton Black, professor, Church History and Doctrine, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah

Howard Bybee, family history librarian, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah

Church History Library reference staff, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah

Christine Cox, library director, Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah

G. David Dilts, senior reference consultant, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah

J. Michael Hunter, section head, Religion and Family History Section and Mormon studies librarian, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah

Diane Parkinson, former microforms librarian and former director of the Utah Valley Regional Family History Center, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah

Ronald E. Romig, archivist, Community of Christ, Independence, Missouri

Donald R. Snow, retired professor of math, Department of Mathematics, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah

Russell Taylor, reference supervisor, and his reference staff, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah

Ronald G. Watt, senior archivist, Church Archives, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah

Fred E. Woods, professor, Church History and Doctrine, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah

Matthew Rayback, associate editor, Ancestry Publishing, Provo, Utah

The author gratefully acknowledges Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, for providing secretarial services, computer assistance, editorial services, and research support. Katie Anderson, Brooke Cheesman, Meredith R. John, Kirsha Quigley, and Jessie Smith, my student assistants, were very helpful in verifying sources and reading the manuscript.

—Kip Sperry

INTRODUCTION

Many Mormon resources of interest to genealogists and historians are available for research—those created by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) as well as sources created by other organizations and individuals.¹ Records of genealogical and historical value are described in this reference book, including indexes and personal-name finding aids, printed sources, original records, computer resources, online databases, CD-ROMs, newspapers, periodicals, reference materials, and many others.

The majority of the original and published materials described in this book are available at three major repositories of LDS records. A brief summary of their holdings follows.

Brigham Young University

Harold B. Lee Library

Provo, UT 84602

www.lib.byu.edu

The BYU Family History Library is housed within the Harold B. Lee Library.² Together, the Harold B. Lee Library and the BYU Family History Library have over 290,000 rolls of microfilm, over 2 million microfiche, over 3 million books, manuscripts, newspapers, 27,000 periodicals, photographs, over 250,000 cartographic maps and atlases, LDS Church resources, over 400,000 government documents, and many electronic databases.³ See Brigham Young University’s websites for a description of their holdings:

Online library catalog <www.lib.byu.edu>

BYU Family History Library⁴

Church History Library and Church Archives

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

50 East North Temple Street

Salt Lake City, UT 84150-3420

www.lds.org/churchhistory/archives

www.lds.org/churchhistory/library

Both the Church History Library and Church Archives are located in the east wing of the LDS Church Office Building, Salt Lake City, Utah.⁵ The official Church records, manuscripts, historical records, and audiovisual materials of the LDS Church are housed in the LDS Church History Library and Church Archives , including microfilm copies of many early records.⁶ A computer catalog is available for the Church History Library and Church Archives.

Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University. Photo courtesy of Mack Philbrick, BYU.

The Church History Library contains published materials documenting LDS Church history from 1830 to the present. Resources include some two hundred thousand published items, audiovisual materials, biographies, books (including rare titles and books published by Church leaders), computer indexes, historical records, histories of the LDS Church and other major religious denominations, indexes to historical and genealogical records, Journal History of the Church,⁷ LDS Church books, local histories, manuscript histories, maps, membership records, microforms, missionary records, newspapers (older newspapers are on microfilm, including the Deseret News and other titles), pamphlets, periodicals (Church magazines and periodical indexes), priesthood minutes, reference sources and finding aids, and many other library resources . Some records are restricted and materials do not circulate to individuals or other libraries. Computer databases, including FamilySearch.org, are also available in the Church History Library.

Artist’s rendition of the new Church History Library in Salt Lake City, UT, which should be completed in 2009. Photo courtesy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Used by permission. © 1999, 2006 Intellectual Reserve, Inc.

Genealogical and historical materials housed in the Church Archives include account books, archival items (unpublished materials), autobiographies, autograph albums, biographical sketches (including biographies of Church leaders), books of remembrance, certificates, LDS Church censuses, correspondence and personal letters, diaries and journals (manuscript and published), family and temple records, family group records, family histories, family sketches, financial and statistical accounts and reports, genealogical committee minutes, genealogical records and reports, histories and records of local LDS Church units (stakes, wards, branches, and missions), indexes, life sketches, local histories (manuscripts), membership records, minutes of meetings (such as quorum meetings), mission reports, newspaper clippings, obituaries (and obituary indexes), patriarchal blessings and indexes to blessings, pedigree charts, photographs, quorum registers, reference books, registers and guides (such as lists of microfilm numbers), rosters and genealogies of priesthood quorum members, scrapbooks, stake and ward historical reports, stake conference reports, unit reports, and other records. Manuscripts, microfilms of original records, photographs, and other archival materials are available for use only in the Church Archives (Archives Search Room) in the Church History Library.⁸

Family History Library

35 North West Temple Street

Salt Lake City, UT 84150-3440

www.familysearch.org (click on Library)

www.lds.org/placestovisit/location/0,10634,1869-1-1-1,00.html

The Family History Library houses the largest genealogical research collection in the world with over 2.4 million rolls of microfilmed records, 742,000 microfiche, 310,000 books, 4,500 periodicals, over a thousand electronic resources (including CD-ROMs), maps, and other resources.⁹ Names of over 3 billion people are found among their records. The Library houses many LDS Church records on microfilm, microfiche, and also printed materials.¹⁰ The Library’s vast collection includes biographies, cemetery records and gravestone inscriptions, national and state census schedules, church records (including membership records), city directories, computer databases and CD-ROMs, court records, family histories (genealogies), county and other local histories, immigration records and passenger lists, indexes, land and property records, probate records, LDS temple records, tax records, vital records (civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths), and many others. Computer databases including Ancestral File, International Genealogical Index, and Pedigree Resource File, among others, are available at the FamilySearch. org website.¹¹ A valuable reference source for the subject of this guidebook is Tracing LDS Families Research Outline.¹²

Family History Library, Salt Lake City, UT. Photo courtesy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Used by permission. © 1999, 2006 Intellectual Reserve, Inc.

Although the Family History Library is international in scope, most records date before World War II (generally before 1930). See the online Family History Library Catalog at FamilySearch.org for a listing and description of their holdings (an earlier version of the catalog is available on CD-ROM).¹³ Researchers may e-mail the library for reference questions to .

Copies of most Family History Library microfilms and microfiche may be loaned to over 4,400 LDS Family History Centers—branch facilities of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City that are located in over eighty-eight countries.¹⁴ There is a distribution fee for borrowing these items. For a catalog of records available at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and over 4,400 Family History Centers, consult the online Family History Library Catalog.

Location addresses (not mailing addresses) and telephone numbers of Family History Centers may be found online at FamilySearch.org. Some of the largest LDS Family History Centers in the United States are located in Idaho Falls, Idaho;¹⁵ Logan, Utah; Los Angeles, California; Mesa, Arizona; Oakland, California; Ogden, Utah; Provo, Utah; Rexburg, Idaho; St. George, Utah; and Washington, DC (to name a few).¹⁶ Refer to each library’s catalog or finding aids for call numbers of records of interest. The largest Family History Center in the LDS Church is the BYU Family History Library in Provo, Utah.¹⁷

The FamilySearch Center is located in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City.¹⁸ This facility is an extension of the Family History Library and contains computer terminals for its visitors.

OTHER REPOSITORIES

Many LDS Church records are also available at other libraries, archives, historical societies, private libraries, and college and university libraries. Of special interest are the holdings of Brigham Young University-Idaho, Rexburg, Idaho; Library of Congress, Washington, DC; University of Utah, Salt Lake City; Utah State University, Logan, Utah; Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut; libraries in Illinois, and others. Addresses of repositories of LDS Church records, along with their websites, are listed in Appendix B, Addresses. Many LDS Church records are available both on microfilm and microfiche, as well as CD-ROMs, and DVD-ROMs.

HISTORICAL AND GENEALOGICAL RECORDS

From its beginnings, the LDS Church has been interested in maintaining records of meetings and other events and has encouraged Church members to keep individual and family history records. Such records include emigration and immigration information, diaries, journals and other personal accounts, Church membership records, newspapers, periodicals, LDS temple ordinance records, unit histories, and many others.

Genealogical information regarding Latter-day Saints may also be found in civil records, such as vital records (civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths), federal census schedules, gravestones and cemetery records, newspapers, emigration registers, church records of other denominations, local histories (such as city and county histories), military records, U.S. passport applications, passenger arrival records and custom passenger lists, Canadian Border Crossings (1895–1954, also known as St. Albans Passenger Arrival Records), departure registers, naturalization records, probate records, World War I draft registration cards (1917–18), Internet and computer databases, and many others.

Many of the printed titles listed in this guidebook have been digitized and made available through various websites. Many printed sources and manuscripts are available in microform (microfilm and microfiche), and many are available on CD-ROM and DVD-ROM.

Internet addresses are provided throughout this book (be aware, however, that Web addresses may change). If necessary, search Google (or another search engine) for the name of the author, title, name of collection, or keyword.

One of the major LDS reference sources was published on CD-ROM by Ancestry, entitled LDS FamilyHistory Suite 2, described in greater detail in chapter 7, Computer Resources and Databases.¹⁹

LATTER-DAY SAINT TEMPLE ORDINANCES

Because references are made throughout this guidebook to Latter-day Saint temple ordinances, a brief explanation is necessary.²⁰ The term temple work refers to sacred gospel ordinances performed for the living, and by proxy for deceased persons, in LDS temples. Latter-day Saints believe that family relationships are both eternal and sacred in nature.²¹ Hence, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints emphasizes the importance of family relationships and believes that families can be united in the most sacred of all human relationships—as husband and wife and as parents and children—in a way not limited by death. Through priesthood authority from God, marriages are performed in temples. These marriages can continue throughout this life and for all eternity. In addition, children are ‘sealed’ to their parents, meaning that their relationship to their parents will continue even after death. In order to give these same blessings to their deceased ancestors, Church members seek information about them so they can perform marriages and sealings on their behalf. These ancestors may then choose to accept these sacred rites.²²

Because of these beliefs, members of the LDS Church search for names of deceased ancestors in order to perform proxy temple work in their behalf.²³ Those in the spirit world, or afterlife, have the choice to accept or reject these sacred priesthood ordinances.

The four basic ordinances performed in LDS temples are as follows:

Baptism for the dead²⁴

Endowment (An endowment is a course of instruction and includes ordinances and covenants.²⁵ The Prophet Joseph Smith first introduced the endowment to nine men in the upper room of his Red Brick Store in Nauvoo, Illinois.)²⁶

Marriage and sealing of couples (known as eternal marriage)²⁷

Sealing of children to parents²⁸

Latter-day Saints believe the power and authority to perform these sacred temple ordinances was restored by the Old Testament prophet Elijah.²⁹ Malachi prophesied that Elijah would return to the earth and restore the sealing keys.³⁰ Latter-day Saints believe that Elijah, as a heavenly personage, returned to earth on Easter Sunday, 3 April 1836, in the Kirtland Temple in Kirtland, Ohio, appeared to Joseph Smith Jr. and Oliver Cowdery, and restored the sealing keys for temple ordinances.³¹

The ordinance of baptism for living individuals is emphasized in the New Testament when Jesus Christ was baptized by John the Baptist as an example and to fulfill all righteousness.³² Baptism by immersion is practiced today as it was taught during the time of Jesus Christ.³³ The Lord taught that baptism is necessary to enter into the kingdom of God.³⁴ Christ also taught that those who have died would hear the gospel message.³⁵ Latter-day Saints believe that proxy baptism for the dead was practiced by the early Christians, as taught by the Apostle Paul.³⁶ In addition, the New Testament refers to the sealing power.³⁷

In summary, Latter-day Saints, like other Christians, believe in Jesus Christ and accept his teachings. In addition, Latter-day Saints believe in eternal life with their families. As a result, they compile family records so that names and relationships can be identified, and they perform proxy temple ordinances in behalf of deceased ancestors to unite the family of God.

CHAPTER 1

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church), was born 23 December 1805 in Windsor County, Vermont.¹ The Smith family later moved to Palmyra in western New York. Joseph Smith, Jr. married Emma Hale on 18 January 1827 in South Bainbridge (now Afton), New York. On 6 April 1830, the Church of Christ was organized by Joseph Smith, Jr. at Fayette, Seneca County, New York.² Records of the