Many genealogical sources are available for tracing the immigration of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). These include emigration records, passenger lists, LDS mission records, LDS Church records and indexes, diaries and journals, personal voyage accounts, genealogies, newspapers, Canadian Border Crossings, computer databases, Internet sites, and many others.

The release of a new compact disc, known as the Mormon Immigration Index, by the Family and Church History Department in Salt Lake City will make the task of finding nineteenth-century Mormon immigrants much easier.

This database identifies some 93,000 LDS immigrants from Scandinavian countries, Great Britain, and elsewhere, who came to America between 1840 and 1890. It serves as an index to passenger lists, personal accounts, and immigration records. Some non-LDS immigrants are also identified. The compact disc comes with Viewer 3.0, which is easy to install. The database is searched by Folio.

The Index is arranged by:

1. Individual

Name of immigrant
Name of ship
Date and port of departure
Date and port of arrival in the United States
Name of church leader
Sources (passenger lists, newspapers, British Mission registers, indexes, books, and other sources). Family History Library microfilm numbers are shown.

2. Passenger List (arranged by individual’s name)

3. Personal Accounts (transcriptions of voyage notes, journal extracts, letters, autobiographies, and source references)

4. Voyages (name of ship)

Source abbreviations and the location of original sources listed in the Mormon Immigration Index are shown in the “Help” section.

The bibliography of original and secondary sources used is impressive, including the following: British Mission registers, Church Chronology, the European Emigration Card Index, passenger lists, histories, newspapers, reports, membership records, the Early Church Information File, Perpetual Emigration Fund, Scandinavian Mission records, LDS publications, Journal History, and others.

The Mormon Immigration Index is available on compact disc for $5 (order #50174) from the Salt Lake Distribution Center in Salt Lake City (telephone: 800-537-5971). This CD-ROM may also be purchased online from the FamilySearch Web site.

Lists of some LDS immigrants are also available on the Internet. One example is a partial list of men in 1850 LDS pioneer companies.

Another new reference source was also announced at the recent Mormon History Association’s annual meeting in Aalborg, Denmark, held during June and July. A microfilm at the Family History Library, known as “Mormon Emigrants, 1872-1894,” identifies some 14,500 LDS Church members and some 520 returning LDS missionaries from Denmark. Contents include: name of head of household, names of family members, occupation, relationship, age, gender, marital status, and last place of residence.

This LDS microfilm has been transcribed by Shauna C. Anderson, Ruth Ellen Maness, and Susan Easton Black and published as Passport to Paradise: The Copenhagen “Mormon” Passenger Lists, 1872-1894 (two volumes, published in 2000 by Genealogical Services, West Jordan, Utah). Volume one covers the years 1872-87, while volume two includes 1888-94 and an index. Two more volumes in this series are planned.

Passport to Paradise is available for $260 for the two-volume set (plus $10 shipping) from:

Genealogical Services
PO Box 1227
West Jordan, UT 84084-1227

Kip Sperry is an associate professor of family history at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.