Overview
Primary Organization Research Guide
Welcome to the research guide for the Primary organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This guide is designed to assist you in finding and accessing resources about the Primary’s history, leadership, materials, and programs. In addition to this research guide, The Story of Primary: Stories from the Founding of the Primary Organization and the Church History Topic “Primary,” found on the Church History website, are principal resources.
The Church History Library holds many resources for the Primary organization. You can use the Church History Catalog to search for names of Primary presidents, counselors, board members, or family members. You can also search for wards, stakes, and missions. Searching the terms “Primary,” “Primary Association,” “children,” “manual,” “songbook,” and other terms associated with the Primary organization will provide many results. Use the search tools on the left-hand side of the catalog to refine your search, such as by date range, location, or language. This guide is not a comprehensive list of available sources but provides key records or a sampling of available records.
This guide identifies resources to be accessed online and on-site. Online resources are digitized content that you can access from your computer by clicking on the title. You may need to sign in to the catalog to view the online resource. At the Church History Library, archivists, librarians, historians, and technicians digitize thousands of images every month. If a collection is not currently available digitally, it could be soon. You can request digitization through the Ask Us inquiry form. Some collections are digitized but, because of copyright law, require that you be logged in to view the digital images; some will also require permission to download.
On-site resources can be viewed at the Church History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. You can identify the item or collection information in the online catalog and request to see the source when you visit the library.