Find Your Scandinavian Latter-day Saint Pioneer Pt 1

Hello everyone! How did your week go this week? Was it an easy one or a challenging one? Mine, thankfully, was an easy one, but next week proves to be busy.

This week I want you to be aware of an important chapter in our Scandinavian ancestors’ lives. One of the reasons people immigrated to America was for religion. Your ancestor may have chosen to become a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints otherwise known at that time as Mormons. They were called a pioneer because they were the first to make a major change from their culture. During the mid 1800s to the early 1900s, missionary work in the Scandinavian countries was prolific. Many Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians converted to this religion and immigrated to Utah in the United States. So why is this information important for you? Well, because if your ancestor was one of these, then you have some extra research to do to find them.

First Step for Your Latter-day Saint Pioneer

First, don’t panic because part of this research will be the same as your research for your other ancestors. You still have to look in the regular Scandinavian church, census, household examination records, and emigration records to find them. You’re welcome to browse my other articles to brush up on researching these records such as this one here.

In other words, if you have a Danish ancestor who joined the church in Denmark, then you would start like any other research project. You would find their town of origin in American records and learn all you can on FamilySearch about that town. Then you would look for Danish church records, census records, and emigration records to find their life in Denmark. Once you’ve exhausted all of the traditional paths in your genealogy search. Then you would look in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints records that they made for their members traveling to America.

Next Step for Your Pioneer Ancestor

FamilySearch.org has an amazing article called Tracing Latter-day Saint Ancestors. In this article, it shows you an overview of the different types of records that you may have to search for your ancestor. It also leads you to another article about tracing your Scandinavian ancestors, which I highly recommend. I recommend staying in FamilySearchWiki and reading everything you can about this period of your ancestor’s life. These articles not only give you links to records, but it also gives you the history as to why and how your ancestor navigated this event.

If you would like further knowledge on this, then I recommend going to you local library and finding biographies. It’s fascinating to learn from personal accounts about this time. In other words, stay here until you feel ready and satisfied to move onto the links that FamilySearch is offering. You might even write down a strategy on how you’re going to search for these records. In addition, if you want to know more about this religion, then start at this FamilySearchWiki article.

Next Week

This is where I’m going to stop for today. Your pioneer ancestor is recorded in different records and they are recorded in different places. Next week I will finish by going through the different Scandinavian church links that will help you once you’ve exhausted the traditional genealogy paths. Until then, just keep doing those small important steps that will lead you forward in your genealogy journey. Those little steps are worth it! They will lead you to your goals!

Good luck and happy hunting!

Tiffany

P.S. Have you signed up for my Wednesday Wisdom emails? New subscribers get a free download of all of the American and Scandinavian websites that I use in my business. Plus, regular subscribers get more tips not included in these articles and an update on the latest blog post. So sign up before you leave!