The Mormon Genealogical Society and Research Opportunities in Early American History

T t HE study of American history has experienced conceptual and methodological revolutions in recent years. Scholars in increasing numbers are combining statistical computation with traditional literary sources to effect more comprehensive historical portraits; important work is going forward in such areas as demography, prosopography, and family reconstitution. Since the method often determines the message, there has been a trend toward microcosmic analysis; close examinations of towns, counties, and kinship groups have appreciably altered our perspectives on cultural life, social structure, wealth distribution, and political activity. As readers of this journal are well aware, some of the earliest and finest community and family studies have been done in the field of early American history. Practitioners of the new social history face special difficulties in research. The vital statistics, court records, deeds, local government registers, and like sources are voluminous. But these records often repose in distant courthouses, town halls, and churches, and their volume presents problems in systematically collecting and recording information. Fortunately, twentieth-century technology offers invaluable assistance to students of seventeenthand eighteenth-century America. Even more important than the computer, which facilitates the tedious task of collating and counting data, are the photoduplication processes that bring the resources to the researcher. Richard W. Hale's Guide to Photocopied Historical Materials in the United States and Canada indicates that the largest collection of microfilmed material for the study of early American history is that of the Genealogical Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints (Mormon) in Salt Lake City, Utah. The purpose of this communication is to acquaint readers of the Quarterly with the holdings of the Genealogical Society Library and to suggest means of utilizing the collection in historical research

Ethnology · Genealogy · Political science · Sociology · American History and Culture · Anthropology · Archaeology and Natural History · History · Mormonism, Religion, and History

• Development of the Genealogical FamilySearch Database and Expanding Its Use to Map and Measure Multiple Generations of American Migration

  Open Access•Sarah M Otterstrom, Brian E Bunker et al.•Genealogy•2021

  Add to list