Overview

Welcome to the research guide for writing a branch, ward, mission, or stake history. This guide identifies various ways you might approach writing about your local Church unit and introduces the various records and resources available at the Church History Library to help you with this type of project.

If you are a history specialist or leader looking for guidance on using the Church’s Unit History Tool, you should visit the tool’s FAQ and Quick Start Guide for guidance. Additional questions can be submitted through our Ask Us service.

Key Vocabulary

Local units: Throughout this guide, the term local units will be used to refer to branches, wards, missions, and stakes.

Local records: Throughout this guide, records produced by a local unit will be referred to as local records. In practice, local records can take the form of meeting minutes, annual reports or histories, attendance rolls, ordinance information, photographs, programs, cookbooks, newsletters, scrapbooks, or any other type of record produced by a local unit.

This guide recommends online and textual resources to assist you with your research. Online resources are digitized content that you can access from your computer by clicking on the title. Textual resources can be viewed onsite at the Church History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, or through electronic means if a request is approved. You can access the item or collection information in the online catalog and request to see the source when you visit the library.

If you need assistance during the research process, feel free to contact us through our Ask Us service. One of our consultants will be happy to help guide you through the research process.