BYU Genealogy Resources

 It has been a while since I reviewed the genealogical resources on the Brigham Young University (BYU) website. BYU Has one of the very few degree programs in genealogy in the United States. They always seem to have a number of projects going on with a number of surprising resources. You could just do a general search on the term "genealogy" from the University's webpage, but you might want to start with the Center for Family History and Genealogy.  Here are a couple of the projects going on presently:

Nauvoo Community Project
BYU describes this project as follows:

Family history students at Brigham Young University's Center for Family History and Genealogy are working in conjunction with LDS Church Historic Sites to identify the residents of Nauvoo, Illinois, from 1839 to 1846. Wherever possible, each resident will be documented from birth to death in the records of the time. This data is available to all who are interested in the history of the community, as well as descendants seeking information about their families.

Bertram Merrill's Index of English Marriages, 1750 - 1836
The project is described as follows:

This website features a unique index to the marriage records of the Chester Diocese from 1750 to 1836. Records of marriage licenses, allegations or bonds have been matched with their corresponding Bishops' transcripts or parish registers. We are pleased to present his index as a fully searchable database created by student employees at the Center for Family History and Genealogy at Brigham Young University.

Immigrant Ancestors Project
Described as follows:

The Immigrant Ancestors Project, sponsored by the Center for Family History and Genealogy at Brigham Young University, uses emigration registers to locate information about the birthplaces of immigrants in their native countries, which is not found in the port registers and naturalization documents in the destination countries. Volunteers working with scholars and researchers at Brigham Young University are creating a database of millions of immigrants based on these emigration registers.

Script Tutorials
Described as follows:

This website offers guidance in the deciphering of manuscripts and other old documents that were printed in old typefaces or written in old handwriting styles. Languages covered here include English, German, Dutch, Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. The content of this website may be useful for genealogical, historical, and literary research.

Discovering English Ancestors
Described as follows:

The purpose of this web site is to provide an outline of some efficient ways to trace English persons in the past. It does not attempt to cover the rest of the British Isles. The Researcher can scan through it quickly and click on the underlined terms for greater details in less familiar areas. The overall approach is to list web sites where the sources can be searched on-line, and then to list the key books and filmed materials in the Family History Library (hereafter FHL) in Salt Lake City and at Brigham Young University (BYU) in nearby Provo, Utah, needed to do original research.

This web site is meant to assist professional scholars doing biography, demography, prosopography, the study of a place or the family as an institution as well as the genealogist. If you are interested in personal family history or are a beginning genealogist continue with the next section. If you are a professional scholar or seasoned genealogist in English research you may wish to skip to the last two sections on Web Sites and Major Records for Original Research.

Welsh Mormon History
Described as follows:

During the early history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, converts from the British Isles played a crucial role, providing much-needed strength and leadership to the fledgling church. Among these, the Welsh were prominent, with influential figures such as Dan Jones and others making significant contributions to the growth of the work. 

The Church had great missionary success in Wales during the 1840's and 1850's, and many thousands of Welsh converts immigrated to America, heading West with Brigham Young as a part of the great Mormon Migration, which began in 1847. 

Today it is estimated that approximately twenty percent of the population of Utah is of Welsh descent. 

As the message of the restoration spread throughout Wales, many Saints eagerly asked, "Pa bryd y cawn fyned i Seion?", which means "When may we go to Zion?" The new converts sought to follow the counsel of their leaders to leave "Babylon" (Wales) and go to "Zion" (Utah). 

This site seeks to preserve and share information about the early converts to Mormonism in Wales. Its main focus is on those individuals who were involved in the Mormon movement in 19th-century Wales. The individuals featured in this site are generally those who were born in Wales and came to America after converting to the Church. 

The information contained herein has been compiled from a variety of sources, but mainly from the "Ancestral File" found on the Church's familysearch.orgweb site. Our database contains a separate record of information for each individual, in addition to numerous multimedia resources, such as journals, biographies and photos. Information about individuals can be found by searching the name in Immigrants. An index of our multimedia resources can be found in the Resources section.

Family History Companion
Described as follows:

The purpose of this course is to supplement the Member's Guide published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by providing additional resources, insights, and information on how to access information that can be used in compiling your family history and provide the necessary ordinances for their salvation. We hope that the material presented here will also help you to come to know who your ancestors are as people and individuals.

There are hundreds of other links and resources including a free complete university level course on genealogy called Religion 261.