Ancestor Preparation Guidelines

Ancestor Preparation Guidelines Ancestor 

Family History Challenge 

Goal: Get youth excited for trek by helping them identify one of their pioneer ancestors and learn more about that ancestor’s trek across the plains. 

(For youth who don’t have pioneer ancestry, they may wish to learn about one of their ancestors who joined the Church and was thus a “pioneer” for their family.) 

Step 1: Identify a pioneer ancestor in one of two ways. 

1. Talk to family. 

They may have a history about the pioneer that you can read, or know only the name of a pioneer ancestor. If they know only the name, you may still be able to find a lot of information on the pioneer website in Step 2. 

2. https://familysearch.org 

You need an LDS Account to access this site. This requires a membership number and birth date. Some youth will already have one set up; others may need help doing this. If they can access a sibling’s or parent’s LDS Account that will work also. 

This site links you to your ancestors using membership records and information submitted by church members over the past several years. Find someone that looks like he or she was a pioneer. Pioneers were those that arrived in Utah prior to the railroad in May 1869 or those that died crossing the plains. Hints that someone was a pioneer – they were born outside of Utah, but died in Utah; they married, had a child born, or died in Utah prior to 1870. If you think you’ve found a pioneer, test their name in the next step. 

Step 2: Look for information about that pioneer on the Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel website. 

http://www.lds.org/churchhistory/library/pioineercompanysearch (or google “pioneer overland travel”). 

This website is “the most complete listing of individuals and companies in which Mormon pioneer emigrants traveled west to Utah from 1847 through 1868.” You can search this site to find the company in which company your ancestor crossed the plains, and find the specific information about that company’s journey (like a list of all the individuals in the company and journal accounts of the trek). 

Many family histories lack the rich detail this website provides. Some histories are incorrect. This is a simple site that everyone can search to learn more about his or her pioneer (even if their family has a history of the pioneer). 

This site has a very good search engine. Sometimes you may need to try different spellings, or different variations of the name to get a result (i.e. “John” instead of “Johan”). 

Click on the name of your individual to make sure it’s a match. The site often provides the birth date, death date, and age when the pioneer crossed the plains, which will help you verify you have a correct person. 

Preparation Guidelines Ancestor 

Click on the name of the company and do two things: 

1. View a list of individuals that were in the company. See if there are names you recognize from church history. Or maybe you will discover that your mom’s ancestors crossed the plains in the same company as your dad’s ancestors. 

2. View a list of sources that provide information about the trek. These are often journal accounts that will include a “trail excerpt” you can click on and read online. 

If you cannot find your ancestor, there may be different reasons for that. They may have come to Utah after 1869 and did not cross the plains on foot. They may have come to Utah in a different way (i.e. as a member of a company going to the gold rush in California). There may not have been enough information about your ancestor for them to be identified in their company. Their name may be too common or spelled in an unusual way. You can try several different searches (a family member’s name will sometimes produce results), or a different ancestor. Most of us have far more pioneer ancestors than we realize. 

Mormon Handcart Companies: 

The following link will provide lists of Members, Ship of Travel, Departure and Arrival Dates, Other General Info, History, and Links. 

http://pioneerexperience.com/ancestor-search 

Make it fun! 

• Get a large map and put dots on the countries where the youth’s pioneer ancestors come from. 

• Have them figure out where their ancestors arrived in Utah, and give a prize to the earliest pioneer. 

If you are excited and want to do more: 

• The Daughters of Utah Pioneers (DUP) has many pioneer histories. If youth do not have a history of their ancestor and would like to search for one, there is an index to the histories available at the DUP museum on their website: www.dupinternational.org. A visit to the museum to see their collections and request a copy of the pioneer histories may be enjoyable for some youth groups. 

• Youth can request a copy of their pioneer ancestor’s patriarchal blessing. This can be done through lds.org using their LDS account. Click on “Tools” and “Patriarchal Blessing.” 

Additional resources: 

http://mormonmigration.lib.byu.edu/ 

http://www.earlylds.com/