Tracing Mormon Pioneers


Documenting the Mormon Trail Experience

You can get a feel for some of the trail experiences by reading first hand accounts of the travel made by members of your ancestor's company. To look these up you need to consult the bibliography for the company. Once you have a title you can then look it up in the Family History Catalog under Title/Author for the reference to identify the microfilm. The pioneer bibliography page can be consulted for more recent publications of articles and books on the pioneers and their settlement in the West. Some of the pioneer experiences by Scandinavian Saints are one their own page: Letters: Scandinavian Saints write about America. Another great source of material are articles written by those associated with the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers.

One resource for pioneer narratives is the Mormon Pioneer Overland database.  Locate the company in question and click on the company sources tab.  Some are very short while others may contain text or links to the entire emigration journal kept by the clerk of the company.  Often there is a summary link off to the right that provides a nice synopsis of the company travel.

The LDS Church History Catalog provides access to many online resources.  Many books, journals, letters and photographs have been digitized and are available without charge to the public.  Search on the name of your ancestor or search on name of the head of the company.  You may be surprised what you can find.

Also with the digitization of many things it is possible to find information not easily accessible previously.  Try doing a search of the web using your favorite search engine to see what may pop up for the company name e.g. "Milo Andrus Company 1850" or a specific ancestor's name.

Family Search is also a great resource.  Search for your ancestor and click on links related to the person and you may find personal letters, biographies, photographs etc. that have been posted by fellow ancestors.  This is nice to have as most were limited to some family members and perhaps only published once.


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Last updated: February 27, 2000