To celebrate all of our pioneers, whether they crossed the plains in the original companies or crossed the ocean on steamships years later, FamilySearch has recently published a few new collections to honor these great men and women.
The Mormon Migration Database, 1840-1932 is an index of pioneer immigrants with image links to journals, autobiographies, letters, and other narratives. The immigrants were from the British, Scandinavian, Swedish, and Netherlands Missions. Search the index for your ancestor, then you will be lead to images of the materials which are found on the Brigham Young University website at mormonmigration.lib.byu.edu. This project is published in partnership with Brigham Young University.
Also published this week was the Idaho, Southern Counties Obituaries, 1864-2007 collection. This record set contains obituaries from a variety of Idaho newspapers (including but not limited to: South Idaho Press, Minidoka News, Times News, Weekly Mailer, Weekly Journal and The Voice). Use this collection to search for ancestors who lived in Minidoka, Twin Falls, Cassia, and Bannock counties.
The Utah, Obituaries from Utah Newspapers, 1850-2005 collection is an index to obituaries from Utah newspapers. The images are located on the University of Utah, J. Willard Marriott Library's Utah Digital Newspaper project. This publication installment provides about 60,000 obituaries with more to be published in the coming months as more records become available through indexing. The obituary date range will vary by newspaper, but some obituaries could be from as early as 1850. This collection will link to Utah Digital Newspapers website, where you will be able to see the obituary within the context of the original newspaper. If you find one of your ancestors in the Overland Trail database or from the Mormon Pioneer Ancestors page, and one of the sources is an obituary from Utah Digital Newspapers, use this collection to find the actual obituary.
The Utah Pioneers and Prominent Men collection contains photos of the portraits from Frank Esshom's Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah: Comprising Photographs, Genealogies, Biographies (Salt Lake City: Utah Pioneer Books, 1913). Find your pioneer ancestor here, then search the Utah Pioneers and Prominent Men collection to find a photo of your ancestor.
Contributors: Heather Dawn Walgren & Jennifer Kerns Davis
