Overview

Welcome to the research guide for the Relief Society of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This guide is designed to help you find and access resources about the Relief Society’s organization and its history. In addition to this research guide, other helpful resources include The Story of Relief Society: Stories from Relief Society History, Gospel Topic: Relief Society, and Church History Topic: Relief Society.

The Church History Library holds many resources about the Relief Society organization. You can use the Church History Catalog to search for names of Relief Society presidents, counselors, and board members. You can also search for wards’, stakes’, and missions’ Relief Societies. Searching the terms Relief Society, Relief Society Association, woman, women, manual, songbook, and other terms associated with the Relief Society organization will provide many results as well. Use the search tools on the left-hand side of the catalog screen to refine your search, such as by date, location, and language.

This guide is not designed to be a comprehensive list of available sources but highlights key records and presents a sampling of available resource types.

Keep in mind that researching women can be challenging. If you do not find the name of the woman in the catalog, try searching for a male relative; often his papers will talk about his female family members.