USING LDS SOURCES IN BRITISH RESEARCH

By Becky Richards

You must understand that we will be dealing with records created after 1837. We will look at records created by the LDS church about members and about pioneers.

In the October Ensign 2005 there is an article by Leslie Huber. She talks about her first experience with family history. “We began with Ancestral File, .....Out of curiosity, I typed in my grandmother's name. With the push of a few buttons, an entire pedigree appeared, stretching back hundreds of years. I was stunned and overwhelmed. As I looked at the chart, I wondered what I could possibly contribute. It seemed that all the temple work must already be done. Almost immediately, a clear though came to me: 'Focus on Sarah Ann Bean.'” ¹

She checks and finds all the temple work has been done for everyone she checks on. She goes on.

“Over the course of the next year, I devoted a lot of time to learning about Sarah Ann. What I discovered made a lasting impact on my life in a way I had not imagined. “²

She finds that Sarah Ann's family helped the saints who had taken refuge in Quincy Illinois and her family joins the Saints in Nauvoo. Sarah Ann marries and sends her husband with the Mormon Battalion.

“In the years since I began collecting information about Sarah Ann Bean Casper, I have been able to do the temple ordinances for many deceased family members. However, none of them have been on Sarah Ann's line. I have never found any missing or incomplete information on this family. Instead, I have realized I was prompted to focus on Sarah Ann not because of anything I could do for her but because of what her story could do for me and my family.” ³

This is the kind of information we will be looking for in these sources.

I don't know that there is any one place to look first, but there is a crossing the plains on the Internet that would be a place to start.

MORMON OVERLAND TRAIL OR CROSSING THE PLAINS INDEX

http://www.lds.org/

There are lots of things to do at this website. For our purposes lets click on

Church History.

At the bottom of the next page click on

Mormon Overland Trail

For starters put in the name of your pioneer ancestor remember this index covers 1847–1868.

I will put in the name James Hall

Click Search

Look at the results. There are not only Hall's but Mendenhall and Foxhall. The James I am looking for is the father so he must be the one in the William Warren Company

Click on James Hall and look at what comes up. The films where this information comes from are available at the Family History Library. The Mormon Immigration Index is just that. It is the index that this website came from. I have not looked into the PEF (Perpetual Emigration Fund) but I plan to the next time I am in Salt Lake.

Next Click on the name of the company

You can click on an entire list of people that came in this company. OR

Click on Sources

Any time it says Full Text you know that if you click there you will get full information instead of just another place to look.

Remember to click on the words Full Text

My ancestor did not keep a journal that I know of and he is not mentioned by name in any of these accounts. But by reading what happened to these Saints I know what my ancestors trip was like. Take time to read the ones that pertains to your pioneer and his company.

CROSSING THE OCEAN INDEX

The church also has an index called “Crossing the Ocean” index. As far as I know this index is only on microfilm. There are 9 films 0,298,431 through 0,298439. Some of them are here at the Family History Center. Check the Family History Library Catalog by subject. Type in Mormon Immigration Choose European emigration card index, 1849-1925. View film notes Choose the film that covers the surname you are researching. Search this number in the Vernal Family History collection to see if we already have it. This will give you the name of the ship and the date it sailed.

Films 0,025,690 through 0,025695 are the ships rosters, these are arranged by date sailed and by ships name. They are found under Emigration records, European Mission; 1849-1885, 1899-1923 View film notes to see which film you need and see if the Vernal Family History Center has it. Here is an example of what the ships roster looks like. The names on the roster are not alphabetized. They do give the Conference that they were from and their age. This allows you to recognize your ancestor if there is more than one with the same name. I tells how much money they paid for passage and how it was paid. I don't know what some of the other terms mean. A conference would be comparable to a Region for us. You can find the membership record of that person by knowing which conference he was in. This leads us to

BRANCH RECORDS IN ENGLAND

Use the Family History Library Catalog

Choose Place

type in the name of the conference

Choose Church records and scroll down until you find the LDS Church

You will need to spend some time looking through these films to find the record of your family.

As you can see the Branch record lists the mother and father and the children they had at the time the record was made, also birth dates and places, baptism dates and by whom, Conformation date and by whom. Also a column listing those cut off or dead. Don't be too worried about those cut off. The leaders were quite strict and what we would consider murmuring would result in their being cut off. If they died the date was listed.

EARLY CHURCH INFORMATION FILE

The Church publishes a resource guide for the Early Church Information file. It is an alphabetical index of individuals. It contains about 1,500,000 entries from over 1,000 sources about Latterday Saints and their neighbors. It covers sources from 1830 to the mid 1900's. It contains information from sources such as Membership records, Journals, Cemetery Records, Marriage records and others.

TRACING LDS FAMILIES

The Research Outline fro Tracing LDS Families Helps with Basic Search Strategies, Census, Church History, Membership records, Temple Records and Vital Records among others.

It has a Records Selection Table as well as a Time Line of Church History. It also contains information about the Mormon Battalion, Utah Militia, Utah War and the Civil War.

UTAH

The church publishes a Research Outline specifically for Utah to help with genealogical research in the state.

FAMILY HISTORY MATERIAL LIST

If you are fairly new to Family History you might want to take a look at this list, It gives a list of Research Outlines, Finding /Records of Your Ancestors, and Resource Guides.

And lets not forget the Research Outline for

ENGLAND

This Research Outline will help with record contents, and availability.

MORMON PIONEER SEARCH

http://www.xmission.com/~nelsonb/pioneer_search3.htm

You will find that it covers the same time period as the Crossing the Plains index. If your ancestor came after 1870 they will probably not be in this index. This same website has a Utah Census search and a Tracing Mormon Pioneers section. This section will help you trace your ancestors across the ocean.

1.”Sarah Ann and Me” Ensign October 2005 p.52

2.”Sarah Ann and Me” Ensign October 2005 p.52

3.”Sarah Ann and Me” Ensign October 2005 p.52