Family History Resources at Brigham Young University

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Posted by BYU (Brigham Young University) on Friday, May 1, 2015

The family history resources at the Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah appear to be somewhat over-shadowed by its proximity to the world famous Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, but the reality is that BYU has its own accumulation of valuable resources. Some of these, like the records in the Family History Library in Salt Lake, can only be accessed by an actual visit to the campus, but many, far more than most genealogists realize, are online and freely available to those who take the time to use them.

First of all, it is important to realize that Brigham Young University is a major university with outstanding academic departments in many areas. It was founded by and is maintained and supported by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As part of this heritage, BYU is one of the few universities in the world that actively supports and teaches the fundamentals of family history. This emphasis is based on fundamental Church doctrine but the expression of that doctrine at BYU has both a spiritual and very practical expression.

Family history related resources at BYU originate primarily from various campus sources. Here is an overview of some of these resources. Bear in mind, that you may want to explore the resources that are available on campus.

The Center for Family History and Genealogy
Here are a few of the online resources from the Center:

• Religion 261 Online Lessons
• Family History Lab
• Immigrant Ancestors Project -- now over 600,000 names in the database
• The Nauvoo Community Project
• Bertram Merrell's Index of English Marriages 1750-1836
• Script Tutorials
• Discovering English Ancestors
• Welsh Mormon History
• Family History Companion

The BYU Family History Library
There are too many links from this website to list here in one blog post. Here is a link to the Alphabetical List of resources.

BYU Harold B. Lee Library
The BYU HBLL (BYU loves acronyms) has books, serials (periodicals), microforms, government documents, maps, graphics, audio files, film and video. There are over 10 million items in the main library.

BYU L. Tom Perry Special Collections
Special Collections acquires, preserves, and makes available for use printed materials (280,000 books, pamphlets, prints, etc.) and a vast array of items comprising manuscript materials (8,000 manuscript collections including diaries, journals, papers, music scores, university records [including records of retired faculty], and 500,000 photographs).

The BYU Family History Technology Lab
The BYU Family History Technology Lab is part of the Computer Science Department and is involved in the research and development of novel or useful family history programs. Their projects currently include:

• Virtual Pedigree
• Relative Finder
• One Page Genealogy
• Intelligent Indexing
• Grandma's Pie
• Geneopardy
• Ancestor Squares

Independent Studies Department
Check out the listing of both credit and non-credit courses in family history.

History Department
BYU offers a BA degree in Family History