RESEARCHING FOUNDERS AND PIONEERS

Useful information for hunting down historic provo people through local newspapers, biographical resources, cemetery records, and local histories.

LOCAL NEWSPAPERS

Newspaper databases and websites for Provo and surrounding areas:

• Utah Digital Newspapers - Includes The Daily Herald from about 1891-2009 with some missing issues.
• Daily Enquirer in BYU's Digital Collections
• Utah Newspapers (Provided by the Utah Press Association) - Includes The Daily Hearld from 2005 to current year.

The Daily Herald and its predecessors and competitors are on microfilm at the Library.

See Our Microfilm Holdings

The Utah County Obituary Index - An online index that can help you determine when and where an obituary actually appeared. Indexing Utah County newspapers from the 1870s through the year prior to the present year, the index will only name the newspaper and give the date the obituary appeared—to actually locate the obituary it will generally be necessary to consult the newspaper on microfilm.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION ONLINE

Mormon Pioneer Search - This index gives basic information on Mormon pioneers identifying the year they came and the source of that information. Not comprehensive, but a quick place to get started.

Mayors of Provo Timeline - List of the mayors of Provo from 1851 to present. List the dates each mayor was in office and the birth and death dates when available.

Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel, 1847-1968 - The most complete listing of individuals and companies in which Mormon pioneer emigrants traveled west to Utah from 1847 through 1868. It is an incomplete listing, as rosters have not been found for all companies. Sources are provided for follow up research on the experiences of each company.

Daughters of Utah Pioneers “History Card Index” - Name index to the 100,000+ pioneer histories on file at the DUP Museum in Salt Lake City, Utah.

FamilySearch Digital Library - An ever growing collection of digitized family, town, and other histories.

Provo Oral History Project - A collection of recorded and transcribed interviews by longtime residents of Provo.

Historical People - Brief biographical sketches of important Utah people.

CEMETERY RECORDS

Utah Burials Database - Includes 322 cemeteries and 600,00 burials throughout Utah, including the burials from the Provo City Cemetery as of November 2005.  This is an ongoing project that focuses obtaining records from every cemetery rather than keeping the database updated with the most recent burials.

Access Older Provo Cemetery Records

A majority of Provo City Cemetery Records are held on-site in our Special Collections room or in our First-Floor Microfilm Cabinet.

Reources located in our Special Collections room include:

• Current Provo Cemetery Index - An alphabetical listing of those who are buried in the Provo City Cemetery. The index is printed off once a year, and deposited in two binders located in the John E. Booth Special Collections room. The index provides you with the deceased's birth date, birthplace, death date, block and lot number. A large wall map showing the layout of the cemetery accompanies the binders.
• The Chronological Burial Record of Provo City Cemetery (1849-1972), Special Collections Call No. 929.5097 C468c 1972 - Listed by burial date, the entries include the name of the deceased, their birth date and birth place, and the block and lot where their plot is located in the cemetery.

Resources located in our Microfilm Cabinet:

• "Sexton's Record," 4 Jan 1849-10 Dec 1938 - This handwritten, chronological record includes name, date of birth, place of birth, parents' names, where died, date of death, location of grave, physician (often blank), and remarks (mostly blank).
• "Sexton's Record," 10 Dec 1938-28 Jun 1982 - Handwritten, chronologically arranged record which includes the name, age at death, place of birth, physician (often blank), place of death, date of death, location of grave, cause of death, and remarks (mostly blank).
• "Cemetery Records," 1849-30 Dec 1995 - Typewritten, chronologically arranged record which includes the burial date, name, birth date, birth place, block, and lot.