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The LDS Family History Library

Jun 16th, 2010
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The LDS Family History Library serves as the flagship for over four thousand satellite family history centers in more than eighty-eight countries. Records for hundreds of millions of individuals are available for inspection and investigation. About two thousand people visit the library each day.


The largest family history research center in the world.

David M. Whitchurch

Researching family history is important for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who believe that husbands and wives and their children can be united as a family for eternity. President Wilford Woodruff established the first Genealogical Society of Utah in 1894.

Apostle Franklin D. Richards was its first president and donated his personal genealogical library to get it started. The original site for the society was a small room above the church historian’s office located at 47 East South Temple (southeast of where the Church Administration Building now stands). The present facility opened in 1985.

Patrons may search their family history by using the available computers and materials.
David M. Whitchurch

Two tireless proponents of family history in early Salt Lake City were Susa Young Gates, daughter of Brigham Young, and Joseph Fielding Smith, President of the Church in 1970. Susa was close to death in London in 1901 after returning from a women’s conference in Copenhagen. Reduced to eighty-five pounds, she sought a blessing from Elder Franklin D. Richards, the mission president in England. 
At first his words seemed to prepare her for death, but after a pause he said, “There has been a council held in heaven, and it has been decided you shall live to perform temple work, and you shall do a greater work than you have ever done before.” She recovered and lived to write, publicize, lead, and teach on behalf of the Genealogical Society for many years. Her diligence trained an entire generation of genealogists who helped further family history from the early to mid-1900s throughout the Church.
The Church Historian’s office used to sit across the street south of the current 
Church Administration Building. 
Early efforts to help Latter-day Saints identify their kindred dead began in meetings held here.
C. R. Savage courtesy of Richard K. Winters

Joseph Fielding Smith sought to elevate family history work as a major mission of the Church. He traveled, spoke, and wrote throughout his life about the importance of identifying ancestors and providing temple ordinances for them. “Redeeming the dead” was eventually recognized as one of the threefold objectives of the mission of the Church.
Microfilm and other records are kept in climate-controlled vaults
© by Intellectual Reserve, Inc.

In October 1938 the Church began microfilming family, civil, and vital government records. In 1963 the Granite Mountain Records Vaults were completed in Little Cottonwood Canyon about twenty miles southeast of downtown Salt Lake City. Original microfilm records needed to be kept there, where temperature and humidity would be optimal for storage. The vaults comprise six tunnels, each 190 feet long, bored into the same rock formation used to quarry stone for the construction of the Salt Lake Temple. The book Roots by Alex Haley, the television mini series that followed, and Haley’s subsequent appearance on The Tonight Show in 1977, brought the library into the national spotlight. An international flurry of interest in family history followed. 
By 2004 there were over 2.4 million rolls of microfi lm housed in the library. Full- and part-time professionals, along with many well-trained volunteers, help patrons search the records on film and computer. “The familysearch.org Web site was designed to handle 25 million hits per day, but soon after the official launch, the site was overwhelmed by more than 40 million hits per day—representing roughly 400,000 users—as well as an estimated additional 60 million unsuccessful daily hits.”
Long rows of microfilm cabinets hold family history information accessible to library patrons
David M. Whitchurch

Family history work can be fun and rewarding. Latter-day Saints search for their kindred dead so that they may attend the temple on their behalf and provide ordinances like baptism
and eternal marriage for those who did not have the opportunity to do so in mortality.

© by Intellectual Reserve, Inc.

A portrait of John Henry Smith and his wife Sarah Farr Smith, parents of George Albert Smith.
Utah Sate Historical Society

>An interesting family story is preserved regarding an important event on this site: Elder George A. Smith built an adobe house with a garden and an orchard on this property. Water from City Creek flowed down ditches at the side of the road. He planted the first crop of potatoes in the Valley. Elder Smith was asked to colonize southern Utah, and the city of St. George is named after him. He later became a counselor in the First Presidency of the Church. He died in 1875 at age fifty-eight.
His grandson George Albert Smith grew up in a home on the northwest corner of South Temple and West Temple streets (next to his grandfather’s home) and in 1945 became the eighth President of the Church. An interesting family story is preserved regarding an important event on this site:
Sarah Farr Smith [wife of John H. Smith] had just finished cleaning the kitchen after the family noontime meal when she heard a firm knock at the back door of her home at 23 North West Temple in Salt Lake City. Proceeding to the door, she was not particularly surprised to see a poor but tidy-looking gentleman standing on her porch. She didn’t know the elderly man, but it was not uncommon for transients to come to her home from the nearby railroad station asking for a meal. As Sarah often tired of serving food at all hours of the day to whoever came by, her husband, John Henry, had purchased “meal tickets” to give to those in need, which enabled them to eat a satisfying meal at a nearby restaurant.

There was something different about this particular man, and Sarah felt moved to invite him in to her kitchen table. As he was eating, the man suddenly asked where Sarah’s young son George Albert was. She indicated that he was outside playing in the yard. He then asked her to call the youth into the house so he could see him. Again she felt compelled to comply, although she was hesitant to leave a stranger alone in the house. She found George Albert, who was about eight years old, playing at a nearby two-story building north of their house, underneath a second-story balcony from which steps descended to the ground level. When she reentered her house with her young son at her side, the gentleman was gone. Sarah was searching through the house for him when she heard a loud crashing sound outside. She rushed out to see what had happened and was astonished to discover that the balcony and staircase under which her son had just been playing had collapsed, sending large beams and pieces of lumber crashing down onto playthings he had left behind just moments before.

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___________________________________________________________________
Brigham Young University Religious Education presents
Hallowed Ground Sacred Journeys
Featuring BYU Religious Educators teaching about sites significant in
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
For more information, or to visit our interactive web site with
dozens of additional sites to explore, please visit

Posted in: Hallowed Ground, Sacred Journeys.

The Deuel Log Cabin

Jun 9th, 2010
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This log cabin is one of only two existing pioneer homes built in 1847; the other is Levi E. Riter’s log house located in This Is the Place Heritage Park. It gives us a good idea of the typical small homes built by the pioneers when they first arrived in the Salt Lake Valley. 

Two families lived in the Deuel Log Cabin.






David M. Whitchurch


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Hallowed Ground Sacred Journeys
- –  Click here to watch this weeks video   – -   
- –  Go directly to our blog here  – -
_____________________________________________________________
The Deuel families, formerly well-to-do residents of Nauvoo, were among the first pioneers to enter the Salt Lake Valley. Upon arrival, Osmyn Deuel began to construct a small log cabin, which was completed in September 1847. It was originally part of the Old Fort—the first permanent settlement built by the pioneers— which stood at 300 West and 400 South.





Kitchenware and other tools inside the Deuel Log Cabin.





Robert L. Hall


The cabin is now in its fifth location since it was first constructed. Originally, the home served as the residence for two brothers, Osmyn M. and William H. Deuel, and their families. The cabin served as the headquarters for Captain Howard Stansbury during his 1849–50 survey of the Great Salt Lake, and later as the home of LDS Apostle Albert Carrington’s daughter Frances and her husband, Zebulon Jacobs. In 1910 the Deseret Museum curator received the cabin from the Jacobs and moved it to the history gallery at the museum. It later sat on the southeast corner of Temple Square before being moved to its current location.
Hand tinted photo of Deuel Cabin.
C. R. Savage courtesy of Richard K. Winters

A portrait of William Henry Deuel and his wife Eliza Avery Whiting.
Daughters of Utah Pioneers


President Ezra Taft Benson told a story about the Deuel cabin









“Years ago we had in the Quorum of the Twelve a great teacher by the name of Adam S. Bennion. On occasion when youth groups would come to Church headquarters, he would escort them over to Temple Square. He always took them to the southeast corner where the Osmyn Deuel log cabin stood. He would tell the young people that this was the kind of home many of their pioneer forefathers lived in—a one-room log hut with no bathroom, no indoor plumbing, no privacy.
He would then request the group to stand midway between the temple and the old log cabin. Then he taught: “On your right you see the circumstances of those early pioneers—how they lived—but on your left you see the temple—the vision they had of the future.”
That is what we hope happens when individuals visit this museum—they will see what their forebears wrought and that this will give a perspective to the present that will inspire them to build a more glorious, a more righteous, future. Our past, after all, is our prologue to the future.”
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The marker in front of the cabin reads:
Residence of Osmyn and Mary Deuel and Osmyn’s brother, Amos, from fall 1847 to spring 1848.
This historic structure is one of two surviving homes built by the Mormon pioneers upon arrival in Salt Lake Valley in 1847 (the other is located at This is the Place State Park at the mouth of Emigration Canyon to the northeast). Originally it was part of the north extension of the pioneer fort erected by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints one mile southwest of here.
The home, 15 feet by 20 feet, was constructed of Douglas Fir and lodge pole pine brought from the mountains east of the city. As restored by the Museum of Church History and Art, its furnishings reflect the lifestyle of the Deuels. Osmyn and Mary were among the most prosperous of the 1847 pioneers.
Osmyn was a blacksmith but he also farmed. Another log structure owned by the Deuels in the fort’s north enclosure probably served as the blacksmith shop. There Osmyn and his brother, William H., whose family lived next to Osmyn and Mary, carried on their trade. It is supposed that Amos worked in the shop also. The Deuels tilled and planted fourteen acres their fi rst season in the valley and also had a garden plot near their homes.
The Deuels were natives of New York. A number of this extended family were Latter-day Saint converts in the early 1830s. They lived in Kirtland, Ohio, and Nauvoo, Illinois, before emigrating west.
After the Deuels left the log home to settle in Centerville, Utah, it is reported that the cabin was used briefly as a militia armory. In 1849 Albert Carrington, later an apostle in the Church, purchased the home and moved it to his property one and one half blocks north of here. It was acquired by the Deseret Museum in 1912. From 1919 to 1976 it was exhibited on Temple Square, then stored until it was moved to its present site where, amidst a landscape of pioneer and native plants, it was opened 19 November 1985.

___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
Brigham Young University Religious Education presents
Hallowed Ground Sacred Journeys
Featuring BYU Religious Educators teaching about sites significant in
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
For more information, or to visit our interactive web site with
dozens of additional sites to explore, please visit

Posted in: Hallowed Ground, Sacred Journeys.

Eliza R. Snow

Jun 2nd, 2010
by admin.
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This monument sits in front of the Pioneer Memorial Museum in Salt Lake City.
David M. Whitchurch
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- –  Click here to watch this weeks video   – -   Click here to go directly to our blog  - -
_____________________________________________________________

Just outside the DUP Museum in Salt Lake, there is a statue that honors Zions poetess, Eliza R. Snow. Eliza was born at Becket, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, January 21, 1804, and was baptized at Kirtland, Ohio, April 5, 1835. She was sealed to Joseph Smith as a plural wife in 1842 and later married Brigham Young after the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph.

Eliza R. Snow served as general president of the Relief Society from 1866 to 1887.
Daughters of Utah Pioneers

Eliza began her pioneer journey from Winter Quarters in June 1847, arriving in the Salt Lake Valley that October. Her powerful gift of literary expression captured the spirit of the Restoration, reflecting the foundational principles of the gospel taught by the Prophet Joseph Smith. She served as the second president of the Relief Society after the Saints arrived in Salt Lake City, figuring prominently in the events of Church history as a womens leader, poet, and writer.

Several of her hymns are Latter-day Saint favorites, including “Behold the Great Redeemer Die”, “How Great the Wisdom and the Love”, and “O My Father”. Forty years after her arrival in the Valley, this remarkable woman passed away on December 5, 1887, at the age of eighty-four. Funeral services were held in the Assembly Hall, after which she was buried in President Brigham Young’s family cemetery. Death held no fear, for she viewed it as simply a door leading to the eternal world. She had requested that no black be worn at her funeral, and the Assembly Hall on Temple Square was decked in beautiful white draperies and white flowers.

Eliza R. Snow was married to Brigham Young and is buried near him in the family cemetery.
Kathie and W. Jeffrey Marsh

“O My Father” was written in 1843 while Eliza R. Snow was living in Nauvoo, Illinois. A close friend, Zina D. Huntington (Young), was grieving when it became necessary to move her mother’s body from a temporary grave to a more permanent resting place. When the remains were exhumed, Zina discovered that they were partially petrified. It seemed to Zina as if the very foundation of the doctrine of the Resurrection crumbled. Zina asked the Prophet Joseph Smith, “Shall I know my mother when I meet her in the world beyond?” to which the Prophet responded emphatically, “Yes, you will know your mother there.” Zina D. Huntington was comforted by this promise. From the discussions surrounding such questions on the Resurrection and man’s relationship to Deity, Eliza R. Snow received inspiration to write “O My Father.”

Orson F. Whitney remarked:

“If all her other writings, prose and verse, were swept into oblivion, this poem alone, the sweetest and sublimest of all the songs of Zion, would perpetuate her fame and render her name immortal. But she believed, with Lord Byron, that a poet should do something more than make verses, and she put that belief into practice, laboring incessantly for the promulgation of her religious faith and for the teaching and counseling of the women of her people.”

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___________________________________________________________________
Brigham Young University Religious Education presents
Hallowed Ground Sacred Journeys
Featuring BYU Religious Educators teaching about sites significant in
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
For more information, or to visit our interactive web site with
dozens of additional sites to explore, please visit

Posted in: Hallowed Ground, Sacred Journeys.

LDS Living – Travel Church Sites in the Blink of an Eye? No Problem, Say BYU Professors

May 27th, 2010
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At 2 o’clock, you’re in the Salt Lake Tabernacle. At 2:01, you’re in Manchester, New York, in the Sacred Grove. A group of Brigham Young University professors have created a way for it to happen, and we’re not talking teleportation.
“Hallowed Ground, Sacred Tours” is a collection of text, photos, videos and virtual reality tours posted on an interactive website, virtualtours.byu.edu, that allow anyone with a computer and Internet access to visit dozens of Church history sites without ever boarding a plane, train or bus.
The idea for the project was conceived in 2001. Since then, the BYU religious education professors behind the work have been in front of the camera, taping footage of Church history sites in places like Utah, New York and Pennsylvania.
“We would like to go to Kirtland, Missouri, Nauvoo and just keep going as long as we have donors that will support it,” said John Livingstone, BYU associate professor and executive producer of the project. “All of it has been done with help of the donors, so it’s all non-profit. … Any money we do make just goes back into the BYU project.”
The footage and other material was first compiled into a book and accompanying DVD called “Salt Lake City, Ensign to the Nations.” Now all the content from the book and DVD, plus much more, is available for free on the website.
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Posted in: Hallowed Ground, Sacred Journeys.

Brigham Young Family Cemetery

May 26th, 2010
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This peacefully landscaped park is on a small hill one-half block east from the midway point on the block which contains both the Church Office Building and the Beehive House. It is the gravesite of Brigham Young, Eliza R. Snow, and other members of the Young family. The cemetery is located in an area that, before large modern buildings were constructed, overlooked Brigham Young’s homestead and the valley he helped settle.

A bust of Brigham Young located in his private family cemetery honors his memory as a servant of the Lord.

David M. Whitchurch

This peaceful private cemetery is open to the public and honors Brigham Young as a father, a prophet, and a statesman.
© by Intellectual Reserve, Inc.

Standing in this cemetery, visitors might reflect on the courage and determined leadership Brigham Young exhibited to make this desert blossom like a rose. President N. Eldon Tanner rededicated this site as a memorial park on June 1, 1974, the 173rd anniversary of Brigham Young’s birth. It was remodeled once more in 2000 and offers visitors the opportunity for quiet reflection about the lives of Brigham Young and other influential Latter-day Saints.

The Brigham Young family cemetery is beautifully landscaped and surrounded by a rectangular wrought iron enclosure, providing a serene setting for Brigham Young’s grave.

David M. Whitchurch

Clayton’s “Come, Come, Ye Saints” stands at the entrance to the Brigham Young Cemetery.
Kathie and W. Jeffrey Marsh

Several sculptures and monuments can be found throughout the park. Among them are memorials to two unique Latter-day Saint hymns. As visitors enter the gate, to their right is a bronze plaque in honor of the unique Latter-day Saint hymn “Come, Come, Ye Saints,” by William Clayton. William was with the first group of pioneering Saints in Iowa near the banks of the Chariton River. He was worried about his wife that he had to leave behind in Nauvoo, Illinois, due to her expectant condition. Upon receiving the news that his wife had given birth to a new baby boy, he wrote a poem and set it to music. The opening line reflects this situation: “Come, come, ye Saints, no toil nor labor fear.” To the left of the gate, on the opposite side of the park, another plaque commemorates Eliza R. Snow’s poem “O My Father,” about our father-child relationship with God and our eventual reunion with Him after this life. Thus, one poem celebrates life, and the other commemorates death and our eventual entering back into God’s presence.

Just inside the front gate of the park is a sculpture by Edward J. Fraughton honoring the six thousand pioneers who lost their lives crossing the plains between 1847 and 1869. In the very center of the cemetery is a magnificent bust of President Young. Just to the west is a unique monument depicting Brigham seated on a bench, reading the scriptures with two children. It portrays a loving father spending important time with family members.

This sculpture honors Brigham Young’s role as a father.
Kathie and W. Jeffrey Marsh


The Great Faith of Brigham Young

Several individuals who worked closely with Brigham Young left accounts of their reflections concerning his life and death.

Prophet and colonizer, Brigham Young.
Daughters of Utah Pioneers

In describing President Young’s faith, one biographer observed: If I were asked to point out the principal thing, which, more than all others, made President Young the great man he was, I think I should reply, without hesitation, that it was his ability to believe— his great faith. First, faith in a living God. . . . Second, faith in every principle and doctrine revealed and taught by the Prophet Joseph Smith. . . . Third, faith in himself, and in his ability to carry on the great work of establishing the Kingdom of God. . . . On his tombstone one might well have written, HE BELIEVED.

Contemplating the imminent death of President Young, George Q. Cannon described his feelings:

On Tuesday night, as I sat at the head of his bed and thought of his death, if it should occur . . . it seemed to me that he was indispensable. What could we do without him? He has been the brain, the eye, the ear, the mouth and hand for the entire people of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. From the greatest details connected with the organization of this Church down to the smallest minutiæ connected with the work, he has left upon it the impress of his great mind. From the organization of the Church, and the construction of Temples; the building of Tabernacles; from the creation of a Provisional State government and a Territorial government, down to the small matter of directing the shape of these seats upon which we sit this day; upon all these things, as well as upon all the settlements of the Territory, the impress of his genius is apparent. Nothing was too small for his mind; nothing was too large. His mind was of that character that it could grasp the greatest subjects, and yet it had the capacity to descend to the minutest details. This was evident in all his counsels and associations with the Saints; he had that power, that wonderful faculty which God gave him and with which he was inspired. And while I was thus thinking of all this, it seemed as though we could not spare him, he was indispensable to this great work. And while I felt it, it seemed as though a voice said, “I am God; this is my work; it is I who build it up and carry it forward; it is my business to guide my saints.”

The plaque reads: Grave of Brigham Young, prophet–pioneer–statesman. Born June 1, 1801, at Whitingham, Vermont. Died August 29, 1877, at Salt Lake City, Utah. Brigham Young, second President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, succeeded Joseph Smith, founder of the Church, who was martyred at Carthage, Illinois. He was chosen as leader of the people in 1844 and sustained as President of the Church December 27, 1847. Earlier that year he led the Mormon pioneers from Winter Quarters (Omaha) to the Salt Lake Valley, arriving here July 24. In 1849 he became governor of the provisional state of Deseret, and in 1850 governor of the territory of Utah. This tablet erected in honor of their beloved leader by the Young Men’s and Young Women’s Mutual Improvement Associations, which were organized under his direction.
Kathie and W. Jeffrey Marsh

Those who witnessed the passing of Brigham Young in the Lion House recorded the following:

[President Young] seemed so restless that Dr. Seymour B. Young, his nephew, thought it best for him to be removed from the canopy bed he occupied which stood in an alcove of the room and placed him before the open window where he would get the air and where his beloved ones could be around him. . . .

When he was placed upon the bed in front of the window he seemed to partially revive, and opening his eyes, he gazed upward, exclaiming: “Joseph! Joseph! Joseph!” and the divine look in his face seemed to indicate that he was communicating with his beloved friend, Joseph Smith, the Prophet. This name was the last word he uttered.”

Representative of his foresight and meticulous but plain manner, President Young left the following instructions for his funeral:

I, Brigham Young, wish my funeral services to be conducted in the following manner:

When I breathe my last I wish my friends to put my body in as clean and wholesome state as can conveniently be done. . . . I want my coffin made of plump one and one-quarter inch boards, not scrimped in length, but two inches longer than I would measure, and from two to three inches wider than is commonly made for a person of my breadth and size, and deep enough to place me on a little comfortable cotton bed, with a good suitable pillow for size and quality; my body dressed in my temple clothing, and laid nicely into my coffin, and the coffin to have the appearance that if I wanted to turn a little to the right or to the left, I should have plenty of room to do so. The lid can be made crowning.

At my interment I wish all of my family present that can be conveniently, and the male members wear no crepe on their hats or on their coats; the females to buy no black bonnets, nor black dresses, nor black veils; but if they have them they are at liberty to wear them. The services may be permitted, as singing and a prayer offered, and if any of my friends wish to say a few words, and really desire, do so; and when they have closed their services, take my remains on a bier, and repair to the little burying ground, which I have reserved on my lot east of the White House on the hill, and in the southeast corner of this lot, have a vault built of mason work large enough to receive my coffin, and that may be placed in a box, if they choose, made of the same material as the coffin-,redwood. Then place flat rocks over the vault sufficiently large to cover it, that the earth may be placed over it—nice, fine, dry earth—to cover it until the walls of the little cemetery are reared, which will leave me in the south- east corner. This vault ought to be roofed over with some kind of temporary roof. There let my earthly house or tabernacle rest in peace, and have a good sleep, until the morning of the first resurrection; no crying or mourning with anyone as I have done my work faithfully and in good faith.

I wish this to be read at the funeral, providing that if I should die anywhere in the mountains, I desire the above directions respecting my place of burial to be observed; but if I should live to go back with the Church to Jackson County, I wish to be buried there.

Brigham Young. President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Sunday, November 9th, 1873, Salt Lake City, Utah.

The grave of President Brigham Young sits in the southeast corner of the Young family burial plot two blocks east of Temple Square.
David M. Whitchurch

President Wilford Woodruff left us this description of President Young’s funeral: This was the greatest day in some respects that the Latter Day Saints Ever Saw. The funeral of President Brigham Young was attended to this day in the New Tabernacle. 18,000 people by actual Count passed through the Tabernacle to visit the Body of President Young and several thousand were not Counted. It is estimated that 25,000 took their last fare well of the honored dead. . . .

The procession was then formed and the Corps Carried and Deposited in the vault & Elder W Woodruff then Dedicated the ground the vault and the body unto the Lord. The History of all this with the speeches is published in the Deseret News weekly of Sept. 5, 1877.

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___________________________________________________________________
Brigham Young University Religious Education presents
Hallowed Ground Sacred Journeys
Featuring BYU Religious Educators teaching about sites significant in
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
For more information, or to visit our interactive web site with
dozens of additional sites to explore, please visit

Posted in: Hallowed Ground, Sacred Journeys.

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