LDS GENEALOGY BOOKS ONLINE: PART 3
©2022 Donald R. Snow --
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ABSTRACT: In Part 1 of this series we discussed where to find genealogy books online and in particular, books containing information about members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We discussed the book formats, usually pdf (Portable Document Format), and how to deal with it. Part 2 discussed additional Church genealogy books online. This class continues the discussion with information about two major sources of Church member genealogy, The Journal History of the Church and the Early Church Information File (ECIF). These provide articles and references to much information. The Journal History is a series of hundreds of scrapbooks of articles from journals, newspapers, and more, with a card file index, also online. The ECIF is not really a book collection, but a card file and now online with references to notes, articles, letters, people mentioned in journals, etc. The notes for this class and related articles,
all with active internet links, are on my website http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html .
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION TO CLASS
- Instructor is Donald R. Snow ( snowd@math.byu.edu
) of Provo and St. George, Utah.
- These notes, with active internet links and other related articles, are posted on Don's website
http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html
.
- Tips: (1) Easy to put an icon on your desktop for the
URL for these notes, or any website, by dragging the icon from in front of the address in
your browser onto your desktop. (2) To open a link from
here in another tab, so you keep your place in these notes, hold down
the Control key while clicking the link.
- This class continues the discussion of free books online containing LDS genealogy and discusses The Journal History of the Church and the Early Church Information File (ECIF).
GENEALOGY BOOKS ONLINE
- See Parts 1 and 2 of this series (see
notes on my website and videos on our UVTAGG YouTube channel) for information and
links about genealogy books about
members of the Church of Jesus Christ.
- Earlier classes also discussed searching, the format
(usually pdf), of most online books and how to make those
searchable (OCR), if they are not already.
THE JOURNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH
- Articles about The Journal History of the Church
-
https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Journal_History_of_The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints ,
-
https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/training/journal-history-of-the-church/journal-history-of-the-church
- Website of The Journal History on the Church History Library -- https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/record/3ffad93a-5200-4a7e-9d68-2f4e42a13188/0?view=browse
- The JHC is a collection of several-hundred loose-leaf-binder scrapbooks of articles and writings about the
Church and its members in day-by-day order.
- The online digital version is from 1830-1923 and later yeas are available in the Church History Library.
- It was started by Andrew Jenson, Asst Church Historian, in 1906 with articles and excerpts from journals, newspapers, etc., going back to 1830 when the Church was organized.
- Util 2008 is was done manually with loose-leaf scrapbooks, but since 2008 it is done electronically with computers; the pages are numbered for each date..
- The Church Historian's Office made a 3x5 inch card file index of the hard copy volumes listing individuals and topics with the dates and page numbers for those dates; this index has
also been digitized and is posted here -- https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/record/1d506d48-29b9-4e95-983f-17fd2a22d2ac/0?view=browse&subView=gallery
- The pages of JHC and its index are are downloaded and I have downloaded and posted on my website the index pages for Erastus Snow, my ggf.
- In the class we will look at some interesting examples from The Journal History.
THE EARLY CHURCH INFORMATION FILE (ECIF)
- This is a card file of references to Church members nywhere in the world from 1830-1914 in church records, journals, articles, newspapers, books, etc.
- FamilySearch Research Wiki articles --
https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Early_Church_Information_File_(ECIF) and
https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Utah,_FamilySearch,_Early_Church_Information_File_- _FamilySearch_Historical_Records
- Link to ECIF in FamilySearch Catalog (misnamed Utah since it covers world) --
https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/2078505
-- can search or browse
- Has more than 1 million cards with references in more than 1,200 databases
- Names may be spelled in different ways, so check various spellings, orders, and initials.
- Does not include every Church member, but has most from 1830-1914 -- good
place to search
- In class we will look at examples from the ECIF.
CONCLUSIONS
- For early Church members both of these sources are good places to check; you may find information you were not aware of at all.
- There are many other Church member databases that we could discuss here and may in other classes.
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