Church History

Library

Online Resources

Church History Produced Websites

Pioneer Database

Database of pioneer names and rosters of those traveling to the Utah Territory between 1847 and 1868. Information includes name, age at the time of journey, company and its captain, company roster, list of sources, and narratives and journal entries.

Joseph Smith, Prophet of God

Contains information about Joseph Smith, his life and teachings, testimonies and reminiscences of him by those who knew him, images, information on historic sites, etc.

Joseph Smith Papers

Website for the Joseph Smith Papers Project, which will include diaries, outgoing and incoming correspondence, revelations, contemporary reports of discourses, editorials, and notices. Most of the information on the website deals with information about the project rather than actual digital copies of documents, though there are some.

Presidents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

This site contains basic facts about each president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including biographical sketches, testimonies, quotes, and images.

Prophets of the Restoration

This site contains a video gallery for each president of the Church, highlighting his life, administration, and personal convictions.

Revelations in Context

Contains stories behind the sections of the Doctrine and Covenants, including new insights from the Joseph Smith Papers.

Gospel Library

Database contains articles from the current Church magazines, Church manuals, hymnal and Children's Songbook. Conference addresses, CES Firesides, General Relief Society Meetings, and other broadcast addresses are also available to download.

Gospel Media

This database contains images and videos, many that depict events and locations from Church history. Much of the content may be used for personal, non-commercial purposes unless otherwise noted. Organizations and legal entities may request permission from the Church’s Intellectual Property Office at permissions.ChurchofJesusChrist.org.

Newsroom - History of the Church

A brief overview of the History of the Church and its people.

Church History Maps

The following maps can help you to better understand the early history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the scriptures revealed through the Prophet Joseph Smith and his successors.

Photographs of Church History Sites

These photographs of important Church history sites portray the lands where early Latter-day Saints walked, where modern prophets have lived and taught, and where many scriptural events took place.

Brigham Young University Websites

Mormon Studies

Harold B. Lee Library's resource guide for online material on Mormon theology, history, culture, and people. Use this guide to facilitate your search for articles, books, biographies, diaries, manuscripts, dissertations, family histories, photographs, films, music, art, and more concerning the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

History of the Church

This page consists of a digital version of the seven volume publication of History of the Church.

Studies in Mormon History

This database includes citations to articles, books, theses, and Ph.D. dissertations dealing with the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, written from the time of its inception in 1830 to the present.

Digital Collections at BYU

Links to Multimedia & Images, Theses & Dissertations, Scholarly Periodicals, Text Collections, and Newspapers.

BYU Broadcasting

Links to video of speeches and presentations given at BYU, as well as radio and television broadcasts.

LDS Scripture Citation Index

Contains links from scriptures used in General Conference talks, the Journal of Discourses, and Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith to those talks. The index covers conferences from 1942 to the present. Results can be sorted by scripture, speaker, or date of citation.

Religious Education Image Archive

Collection of photographs, drawings, and paintings of LDS historic sites, areas of the Holy Land, and significant people in Church history. They are organized by book of scripture and Institute course.

Nauvoo Community Project

This site includes a database that identifies residents of the Nauvoo, Illinois, area from 1839 to 1846, follows them over time, and documents their later lives. This database includes more than 52,000 records and provides links to many primary source documents.    

Mormons and Their Neighbors

An index to over 100,000 biographical sketches appearing in 185 published volumes. These sketches include persons living between 1820 and 1981 in northern Mexico, New Mexico, Arizona, southern California, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, and southwestern Canada.

Mormon Migration

Contains rosters of overseas travel of Latter-day Saints emigrating to Utah from Europe. Also found are transcripts of letters, journals, and other accounts of the travelers.

BYU Speeches

Collection of speeches given at BYU, many in audio, video, and text formats.

Historical Societies and Archives

Utah State History

Gateway to the various divisions of Utah State History: Utah State Historical Society, Research Center and Collections, Historic Buildings, Archaeology, and State Historic Preservation Office.

Community of Christ Library and Archives

The archives has over 1,000 linear feet of holdings including letters, diaries, pictures and journals. The library has several historical collections including the Herald House book imprints, the antiquarian book group, and a vault. The items can only be viewed onsite in Independence, Missouri.

College and University Libraries

See Mormon Americana edited by David J. Whittaker for a detailed examination of each repository's Mormon holdings.

Brigham Young University Harold B. Lee Library
BYU-Idaho David O. McKay Library
BYU-Hawaii Joseph F. Smith Library
University of Utah Marriot Library
Utah State University Merrill-Cazier Library
Weber State University Stewart Library
Southern Utah University Gerald R. Sherratt Library
Dixie State College Val A. Browning Library
Snow College Library
The Bancroft Library
The Huntington Library
Harvard University Houghton Library
Princeton University Library
Yale University Sterling Memorial Library
New York Public Library

Digital Books and Newspapers

Utah Digital Newspapers

Searchable digital images from state and local newspapers from throughout Utah. Additions to the database made regularly.

Mountain West Digital Library

An aggregation of digital collections from universities, colleges, public libraries, museums, and historical societies in Utah, Nevada, and Idaho.

American Memory from the LIbrary of Congress

Internet Archive of Government Held Collections.

Google Books

Collection of digitized books. Full text of out-of-copyright books available. Contains numerous Mormon related books.

Internet Archive

Digital collections of video, audio, and text from a variety of institutions and covering numerous topics. the material fromthe Church History Library can be accessed through the following link: http://archive.org/details/churchhistorylibrary