Record Atlas
5 eras · 1769–2026 · 282 places

Utah — Mexican ground to Deseret and Utah Territory

Salt Lake City, Ogden, Provo, St. George, Logan. Which empire held this ground in which years — and, the part that matters, which archive that means.

Whose archive this ground was

YearsWho held itWhose archive that means
1769–1821 Claimed as part of Spanish Alta California no registers survive

Before registers. The Spanish province of Alta California was described as including all of present-day Utah.
1821–1848 Mexican Alta California no registers survive

Utah lay within Mexican Alta California until the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848. The Mormon pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847, when the land still belonged to Mexico.
1848–1850 State of Deseret (provisional) in ceded territory FamilySearch · National Archives Catalog (NARA)

The Mormon settlers formed the provisional State of Deseret, dated to March 12, 1849 in one study; it served as the de facto government before Congress acted. Sources differ on when Deseret ended (1850 or 1851).
1850–1896 Utah Territory FamilySearch · National Archives Catalog (NARA) · Chronicling America

Congress organised Utah Territory on September 9, 1850; it then covered present Utah, most of Nevada, western Colorado and a corner of Wyoming, and lost ground when Nevada Territory and Colorado Territory were formed in 1861 and Wyoming Territory in 1868. Fillmore was the capital to 1856, then Salt Lake City. A Church History Library database names the pioneers who came to Utah from 1847 to 1868.
1896–2026 United States — State of Utah FamilySearch · National Archives Catalog (NARA) · Chronicling America

Utah became the 45th state on January 4, 1896. Statewide birth and death registration began in 1905, with county clerks keeping registers from 1898; the Utah State Archives holds the permanent records.

The rings are approximate — deliberately. They exist to shade which filing system a place fell under, not to adjudicate a border. A place near a ring's edge should be checked against both neighbours.

See the whole span, 1769–2026, on the map →

The map takes a range, and a range that crosses one of the rows above is where records get lost: the family never moved, and the archive on the far side of the handover will tell you it holds nothing.

282 places on this ground

The 200 carrying the most collections are listed; 82 more stand on this ground. Every place has them all.

1742 FamilySearch collections reach this ground

Ranked with the regional ones first — a collection for a province is usually a better lead than a national index, though the national index is often where a name is actually written down. A free account opens the images.

…and 1682 more.

All record regions · The map