Utah Periodicals, Newspapers, and Manuscript Collections
This entry was originally written by Patricia Lyn Scott, CA and Gary Topping Ph.D. for Red Book: American State, County, and Town Sources.
Periodicals
- Utah Historical Quarterly. Utah Historical Society. Providing good historical context of Utah research, the publication also evaluates source material for genealogical and local history research. The society's The Utah History Suite Edition 3 (1999), CD-ROM by Historical Views contains most issues of the Quarterly, plus all 29 centennial county histories.
- Genealogical Journal. Utah Genealogical Association. Not restricted to articles on Utah genealogy, the publication is of national interest including methodology and source material from all over the world.
- Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine. Genealogical Society of Utah. Published between 1910 and 1940, its articles were not limited to Utah or Mormon genealogy.
Newspapers
The first newspaper in Utah was the Deseret News, which began publication in Salt Lake in 1850. Other nineteenth-century newspapers and their first date of publication include:
- Ogden Standard-Examiner, Odgen, 1870.
- The Daily Herald, Provo, 1873.
- The Salt Lake Tribune, Salt Lake City, 1875.
- The Washington County News, St. George, 1896.
- Intermountain Catholic, 1899.
Robert P. Holley, Jr., Utah's Newspapers: Traces of Her Past (Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1984), contains a valuable 'Checklist of Utah Newspapers' beyond those mentioned here. The university's library holds many obscure Utah newspapers on microfilm in addition to the major ones. See the Public Pioneer (see Utah Archives, Libraries, and Societies) for information online newspaper indexes.
Both the Utah Historical Society and the Salt Lake City Public Library have extensive subject newspaper clipping files. The most significant clipping file is the LDS Church Historical Department's 'Journal History.' It is a chronological file beginning in 1830 organized by the event's date of occurrence. Each article has been extensively indexed.
More than 100,000 pages of Utah weekly newspapers are being digitized as part of the ongoing 'Utah Digital Newspapers: A Utah Academic Consortium Project.' An online searchable database with digital images is available to researchers at www.lib.utah.edu/digital/unew.
An Obituary Card Index of those listings found in runs of twelve Salt Lake City newspapers from the beginning of their publication is microfilmed and available through FHL. The earliest newspaper covered is for 1850 with more recent ones running through to 1971.
Manuscripts
The Utah State Historical Society, the Church Historical Department, and each of Utah's major universities maintain large manuscript collections focusing on Utah history and containing material useful to the genealogist. All major Utah repositories maintain skilled reference staffs who are able to answer questions about their holdings and to do limited amounts of research in response to specific questions submitted by telephone or mail.
