Scandinavian Genealogy—Mormon Emigrants

The website "The Journey is the Reward" has information about the 19th-century immigration of the Scandinavian members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some of the information is also useful for emigrants of other nationalities.

The author of the website has provided a free PDF download of the 700+ page book The Journey is the Reward: Tracing Scandinavian Latter-day Saints from the Scandinavian Mission (1852-1881).

Download the Table of Contents here.

Download the book here.

Some of the contents:

• Research suggestions
• Ship registers
• Ship descriptions
• Diaries
• A history of the church in Scandinavia
• Notes on life in Utah for the emigrants

 A typical account of a ship's voyage is represented here by an excerpt from Charles R. Savage's account of the voyage of the John J. Boyd (December 1855-February 1856). The John J. Boyd was carrying over 500 Mormon emigrants.

About midway on our passage we fell in with the clipper ship “Louis Napoleon,” from Baltimore to Liverpool, laden with flour, with all her masts and spars carried away and leeward bulwarks stove in; upon nearing the ship we found her in a sinking condition. The captain and crew desired to be taken off, which was done. This acquisition was of great advantage to us as the bad weather, sickness and exhaustion from overwork had made quite a gap in our complement of sailors. We had much sickness on Board from the breaking out of the measles, which caused many death) among the Danish, chiefly among the children. In the English and Italian companies we lost three children. The weather got worse after crossing the Banks, so much so, that we were driven into the Gulf Stream three times, and many of our sailors were frost-bitten. Our captain got superstitious on account of the long passage and ordered that there should be no singing on board; the mate said that all ships that had preachers on board were always sure of a bad passage; however, the Lord heard our prayers, and in his own due time we arrived at our destination. On the evening of the 15th of February we were safely anchored, having been 66 days out from Liverpool.

Our supply of water was almost exhausted. We had on our arrival only about one day’s water on board. The provisions were very good and proved abundant to the last. On our taking the pilot on board he informed us that there had been many disasters during the months of January and February; many ships had been wrecked. We had made the passage without the loss of a single spar.

 If you are doing Mormon Scandinavian emigrant research, remember the sites:

• Mormon Migration (ships' registers and accounts)
• Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel (pioneer companies)
• The Journey is the Reward (mentioned above)
• Family Search Research Guides (look under the topics Denmark, Danish, Sweden, etc.)
• Cyndi's List (index of research resources)

The picture of the William Tapscott is from www.xmission.com/~nelsonb/ship_desc.htm.