Hi. I'm Keith Erekson. And I'm the director of the Church History Library. The library serves as the official archive for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Our principal location is in downtown Salt Lake City, on Temple Square. But we also store records in more than two dozen locations around the world. I want to talk with you about what's in the library and how it can help you with your family history. First, what's in the library? [MUSIC PLAYING]

So let's break this down a little bit. In the library, we hold official Church records. Oftentimes people are surprised that official records also have connections to their family. For example, we collect scriptures: every edition, every language. But the scriptures also belonged to specific people. The ones in our collections, many of them have handwritten inscriptions. There are stories about who owned these volumes and how they were passed down. We also have many, many periodicals that were published as part of the Church's history. The articles in these periodicals are written by local people. They're about people and events that happen all throughout the world throughout the history of the Church. We also keep the official membership records of the Church. These may be the records that clerks create. They also take many other forms. There could be lists of wards in Winter Quarters or in the Salt Lake Valley. In the early 20th century, the Church took several censuses at different time periods that tracked the people in different wards and places. There was also a record of deceased members undertaken throughout much of the middle part of the 20th century. This set of records is very helpful because it also records priesthood lineage for the men who were deceased during that time period. We also store local unit records. Some of these are manuscripts, so they're handwritten. They are narratives. They tell the stories about units. Sometimes they're forms that get sent to units to be filled out and sent back to headquarters. There are reports of officers and statistics. In many instances, there are minutes of meetings. These may be conferences, but also sacrament meetings, or Relief Society meetings, local meetings. And among our local records, there are many newsletters, histories, cookbooks, dedicatory programs, all kinds of things created by local members of the Church throughout the world. The final category of official records are those I just call "I'm Feeling Lucky." There's really not a rhyme or reason why the records were created, but we have them. And sometimes you score big. For example, while the Nauvoo Temple was being constructed, they took a time log for the carpenters. People in the other trades, not so lucky. But if your ancestor was a carpenter, we could have detailed information about your ancestor's contribution to the temple. There's a ledger book for the Perpetual Emigrating Fund. This records the amounts of loans. It records the size and names of people in families and also the repayment of loans for crossing the plains. And in the Utah territory, we have a huge collection of account books for public works. So any time that your ancestors might have worked on a public project, such as a road, or a school, or a library, that may have been recorded in this account book. In addition to official records, we also gather many personal records. These include the diaries and memoirs of Latter-day Saints. We have thousands of collections of these unpublished materials. Letters, they are frequently handwritten. And there's usually not an index so you need to get in and read around. And we can't just find these with an internet search. One example of personal records that have been pulled into a really fun collection are the Brigham Young Office Files. These contain more than 15,000 letters from Church members who wrote to Brigham Young, asking for guidance or advice, sometimes for financial help. Often they would report on the assignments that Brigham had given them to do missionary service or colonizing work. And in the Church History Library, we have thousands of photograph collections. Some of them are official. Like the Physical Facilities Department took photographs of Church meeting places for nearly a century. We have photographs of Sunday meeting places, temples, also local unit activities. There are also personal photos of individuals, families, and communities. So now let's talk about the second question. How can you find your family in the records of the Church History Library? Well let's begin by visiting the library's website. Visit ChurchHistoryLibrary.org on the internet. And there on the landing page, you'll see a place where you can click to Find Your Family in Church History. When you click there, it will take you to a landing page with lots of resources. But I want to talk to you about some of them. So the first place you want to start is the Church History Catalog. This is the list, the inventory, the searchable database of everything that we have in our collection, no matter where it is stored around the world. If you search for a term, you could search for a person, a place, a topic. You will see here, from a sample results list, that we have information both in the language of the original materials, as well as in English. The catalog is searchable in English. And for those materials in other languages, it's searchable in those languages as well. If you look on the left side of the screen, you'll see several facets. These are ways that you can narrow down your search and hone in on the things that you want. Now, ultimately, you'll see the thing that you're looking for. And if it's marked as being digital, you'll be able to go right into the catalog and view it online. There are more than 20 million digital assets in the online catalog. You'll be able to find them in a viewer or player, and research them from the convenience of your own home.

The next place you should look is our Missionary Database. This is an effort to document every missionary who served in the history of the Church, from the beginning in 1830 until about 80 years ago, as we strive to protect the privacy of living persons. We do release information each year. And currently the database has more than 40,000 missionaries who served in dozens of nations on nearly every continent. You'll be able to search by name. And when you find a missionary, you will be taken to this entry page. You'll get some basic information. You'll also be able to connect with this person in FamilySearch. If you look down near the bottom, you'll see a place in the timeline where he served in the Mexican Mission. I want to call out that link where it says See Missionaries. If you click there, it will pull up a list of other missionaries who were serving in the mission at the same time as your ancestor. Another thing to note is that you can attach sources from the Missionary Database into the Family Tree. So the sources you'll find under each missionary and for the mission, and then using this link, you can document what you found in your family records. Now you'll love some of the sources that are in here. We've got all kinds of collections that have been digitized. Here's an example of a missionary accepting his mission call in a personal letter to the president of the Church, Joseph F. Smith. We also have many, many photograph collections that we've digitized that you can use to find your ancestors and understand life for the missionaries during the time of their service.

You'll also want to check our pioneer database. This is an effort to document every person who crossed the plains from 1847 until the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869. We've identified more than 57,000 individuals who crossed as part of 370 companies. There are thousands of sources in this database as well. And it's structured in the similar way. You can search for a person, find their company, and then you can find the names and information about other people who also crossed the plains in that company. One more resource that I'd like to mention to you is a Research Guide that we've created on our family history sources and local history sources. This has been compiled by librarians and archivists who have scoured our collections to identify the resources that will be helpful in your research. They're broken out in the guide by what's online, by things that are published, by material types, and photographs, and membership records. This is a great launching point to dive deeper into the collection. So in summary, there are many, many records in the Church History Library collection. If you visit our web page, ChurchHistoryLibrary.org and click on Find Your Family in Church History, it will lead you to the Church History Catalog, to our Missionary Database, to our Pioneer Database, and to a research guide that will help you dive deeper into our collection. Finally, I invite you to click Ask Us anywhere that you may see it, on the website or in our catalog. That will open up a dialogue that you can have directly with our librarians, and archivists, and historians to help you find exactly what you need as you research your family. The records of the Church History Library document the history of the Church. But along the way, that history includes the lives and records of many, many individuals. And I wish you well as you find your family in Church history.