England Nonconformists The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Records (National Institute)

Latter-day Saint Records
Researchers finding a member of the LDS church in their family can be almost embarrassed by the amount of records available. Camp (Was Your Ancestor a Mormon? Family Tree Magazine Vol 14, #10, p.17-18, 1998) has an intelligent non-members’ viewpoint of available records on Mormon families. The Family History Library’s Research Outline Tracing LDS Families will be your first essential resource.

For those who were members of the LDS church from the earliest date until the mid-20th century the first place to check should be the ECIF (Early Church Information File) for which there is a Resource Guide published by the Family History Library. This indexes over 1,000 sources and has about one and a half million entries, all on 75 rolls of.

One of the items indexed is the Membership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 1830-1848 which is on a set of in most FHCs and for which there is a separate Research Guide. Information on each member is divided into four sections—vital statistics (birth, parents, marriage and death); church ordinances; temple ordinances; and biographical sketches.

Church organization is centered on local wards of perhaps 200-500 members presided over by a bishop, which are combined into stakes led by a stake president. Where numbers are insufficient to make a viable ward the local group is called a branch and is supervised by a branch president.

Latter-day Saint Branch Records
Formerly, branches in Britain were organized in conferences thus early records may be at branch or conference levels there. Records are largely genealogical including:


 * Date and place of birth.
 * Names of parents.
 * Residence, often with street address.
 * Date and place baptized and confirmed in the LDS church and by whom.
 * Marriage date and place.
 * Spouse’s name.

Other records could include:


 * Date and place of death.


 * Details of emigration to the USA.


 * If s/he was not in good standing through a major transgression, then date of disfellowship or excommunication. If s/he repented then a rebaptism and restoration of full fellowship could take place.

As an example of what may be found, contains the record of members of the Bristol Conference (Gloucestershire) whence the items in the chart below are taken.

Chart: LDS Bristol Conference Records —

Latter-day Saint Emigration Records
Many 19th century English converts and their families emigrated to Utah, and a few came back. The registers of the Liverpool Emigration Office of the Church cover the periods 1849-1885 and 1899-1925 for the ships sponsored or chartered by the LDS church (and which also carried some non-members). They are particularly useful since the government passenger lists for this period were destroyed in WWII and they list:


 * Names, ages and occupations.
 * Residence in British Isles or address of someone who could be contacted after they left.
 * Information regarding purchase and financing of their ticket.
 * Name of vessel, its departure date and destination.

Amongst hundreds of other records of Mormon emigration the following can be especially recommended:


 * The Familysearch Mormon Immigration Index on CD contains information on passengers and diaries of voyages from 1840-1890 from many countries in Europe and Britain.


 * Pratt and Smart’s account of life on board a Mormon emigrant ship on.

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Information in this Wiki page is excerpted from the online course English: Non-Anglican Church Records offered by The National Institute for Genealogical Studies. To learn more about this course or other courses available from the Institute, see our website. We can be contacted at [mailto:wiki@genealogicalstudies.com wiki@genealogicalstudies.com]

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