Effective family research requires an understanding of the historical events that may have affected your family and the records about them. Learning about wars, governments, laws, migrations, and religious trends may help you understand political boundaries, family movements, and settlement patterns.

The following events affected Utah's political boundaries, record-keeping practices, and settlement patterns.

1776	Spanish explorers Dominquez and Escalante visited the Utah area.
1820–1840	Fur trappers, including Jedediah Smith and Jim Bridger, worked in the area and held rendezvous in Utah. They also built some forts.
1822–1848	The area known as Utah was part of Mexico until the end of the Mexican War. At the end of the Mexican War, the region that included present-day Utah and parts of several surrounding states became part of the United States.
1846	The Donner-Reed party blazed a trail through the Utah mountains into the Salt Lake Valley. This was the same trail later used by Brigham Young
1847	Brigham Young led the first wagon train of pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley. These were the first white settlers in Utah.
1847–1869	About 69,000 Mormons crossed the plains into Utah by wagon or handcart before the coming of the railroad.
1847–1857	Mormon settlers founded approximately 100 towns in present-day Utah, Nevada, Idaho, California, and Wyoming.
1849	The Mormons organized the Provisional State of Deseret, which provided Mormons with a constitution and a system of government until Utah became a territory in 1850. The State of Deseret included parts of present-day California, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah.
1850	The Utah Territory was organized to include parts of what are now Nevada, Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah.
1856-1860	Approximately 3,000 immigrants came to Utah with the handcart companies.
1857-1858	President James Buchanan ordered United States States Troops to the Utah Territory to challenge an alleged Mormon rebellion. Brigham Young recalled settlers from outlying communities. The crisis was settled peacefully, and in June 1858, federal troops established Camp Floyd 40 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.
1858-1868	Another wave of Mormon settlement saw communities established in Utah and what is now southern Idaho, southeastern Nevada, and northern Arizona.
1861	The territory of Utah was reduced by the creation of the territories of Nevada and Colorado.
1862-1865	Fort Douglas was established in 1862 when 750 volunteer soldiers came from California during the Civil War. .
1862	The first of a series of federal laws was passed to discourage the practice of polygamy. The first was the Morrill Act which defined plural marriage as bigamy and declared it a crime.
1863	Mining began in earnest. Recurrent mineral discoveries brought prospectors to Utah throughout the latter part of the 1800s and into the 20th century. Mining attracted minority communities to Utah.
1865-1867	Approximately 100 settlers and an unknown number of American Indians were killed during the Black Hawk Indian War. Attacks were primarily occurred in the Sanpete and Sevier valleys, causing the temporary abandonment of a number of settlements.
1868	The territory of Utah was reduced by the creation of the territory of Wyoming.
1869	The first transcontinental railroad was completed at Promontory Point near Brigham City, bringing an influx of settlers to Utah, including Chinese.
1870s	Mormon settlers established additional communities in the adjacent states of Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, Colorado, and Arizona. The coal mining industry that began in the 1870s and steadily increased until the 1920s attracted thousands of new immigrants to eastern Utah.
1874	A second anti-polygamy bill, the Poland Act, was passed, limiting the jurisdiction of probate courts, thus forcing members of the Church to be tried in federal courts including those being tried for polygamy and those seeking divorce.
1862-1887	The most far-reaching act, the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887, was passed to stop the practice of polygamy. This act had a tremendous impact on the people of Utah and their record-keeping practices. This act:
	•Abolished woman's suffrage. •Authorized the administering of an oath of obedience to anti-polygamy laws for all prospective voters, jury members, and office holders. •Disbanded the Perpetual Emigration Fund Company. •Eliminated some civil rights to more harshly prosecute polygamy laws through the court systems. •Gave the federal government control over territorial schools, probate courts, and the Utah Militia. •Required that all marriages be publicly recorded. •Disincorporated The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
1880s-1890s	Mormons primarily from Utah, Idaho, and Arizona established communities in Sonora and Chihuahua, Mexico, and Alberta, Canada.
1890	Wilford Woodruff, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, gave a proclamation that became known as the Manifesto. This advised Latter-day Saints “to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land” .
1896	Utah was admitted as the 45th state. At this time the probate courts were abolished and the responsibilities of the federal district courts were transferred to state district courts
1941–1945	70,000 Utahns enlisted to serve in World War II. Over 3,600 died and 2,800 were wounded.
1942	As part of World War II, Topaz concentration camp for relocating Japanese Americans started first large Japanese community in Utah.