A project that has been in the works for a year or more, developed by historians at the Church History Library, has now gone live: “Go Ye Into All the World”: Early Mormon Missionaries, 1830-1930.
This database includes records extracted from the missionary registers, acceptance letters and other correspondence by missionaries, and there are links to missionary journals posted elsewhere. It is designed to expand indefinitely, and is searchable by name, by mission, by time period, and by keyword. Much like the Mormon Pioneer Overland Travels database, you’ll be able to submit documented information to correct and expand the records of those you have studied.
This will become a standard and indispensable tool for family and Church history workers. Some will want to search for grandparents. Some will be able to use the database to decipher the names of missionary companions appearing in grandparents’ diaries or on the backs of old photographs. Some will discover who carried the gospel to their ancestors. It’s hard to overestimate the usefulness of a database like this.
Visit history.lds.org./missionary and enjoy exploring.
Apparently they unveiled this today at the Rootstech Conference — the big annual genealogy/family history conference in Salt Lake.
Ah, much thanks for the notice. I’ve already filled in one gap on a project!
Wonderful!!! How exciting! Just two minutes with the database and I’ve already found some great material. Thanks, Ardis!
This looks very useful–and exciting.
Thanks for sharing this. Looked up some great grandfathers who I knew served missions, and discovered they both served more than one, which I didn’t know before.
This is wonderful!! Look what I found!
https://dcms.lds.org/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE4354080&page=1
This all makes me so happy — the discovery of things nobody even knew to go looking for before! This is a great day.
That’s awesome! I found my grandfather, great-grandfather, g-g-g-grandfather, and several collateral relatives.
But my g-g-g-grandfather was baptized in 1831, not 1830 by Lyman Wight, not “Lyman Wright.” I know this because Wight didn’t leave on his mission until 1831. His mission call is in the Doctrine and Covenants, if that’s a good enough source.
Yeah, I suppose that’s a decent source, Left Field! (Remember that these registers are not primary evidence of baptism, though, but were filled in when someone left on a mission. Are you going to submit a correction?)
Awesome! I found my great-great grandfather in there.
My fourth-great-grandfather was said to have gone on a mission in 1844. We knew that he was called, but there are just a few decades-later hints in the family history that he actually went. Now, thanks to the new database and thanks to the other missionary he worked with, his descendants have a couple of short accounts of his mission, including this one:
I’ve added the new accounts to FamilySearch Family Tree and my family history blog.
The website has an option to submit additional information. I’m sure that will be used mostly to submit corrections, but if a record is correct, what kind of additional information are they looking for (besides photographs). From my grandfather’s journal, I can identify the cities he served in. Are they interested in adding that kind of stuff?
I think they’d like the text or scan of the journal itself, LL, if it isn’t already posted somewhere like BYU’s online collection of missionary journals. If it is, there should be a link in your grandfather’s record in this database
You could probably use the link to ask about any material you have and whether it is suitable for the database — correspondence from the missionfield? A newspaper account of his return or farewell? Missionary certificates? I can’t speak for them, but it’s worth thinking about what documentation you have for his mission, and offering it to them.