Church Leadership Information Added to Church History Biographical Database

The Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recently added information about general Church leadership to the Church History Biographical Database.

This new dataset offers searchable information and resources about historical and present-day leaders, beginning with the first and second elders — Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery — and continuing through to the present day, according to an August 19 ChurchofJesusChrist.org blogpost by Lis Allen Walker, an employee of the Church History Department.

Each leader’s biographical profile includes photographs, a timeline encapsulating their Church service and source documents. The Church also plans to update the information with future leadership changes.

Find Church leaders' official biographies online General Church Leadership

Biographical Database

The Church History Biographical Database contains information about the lives of over 100,000 members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as they worked to build Christ’s kingdom on the earth, according to the website.

The database includes records of pioneer immigrants to Utah (launched in 1998), early missionaries (2016), participants of the Mormon Battalion — and now Church leadership.

The Pioneer Database was launched in 1998, and the Missionary Database followed in 2016. Those two datasets merged into the Biographical Database at RootsTech 2022. Information about the Mormon Battalion was added in 2023.

Collecting the Data

The Doctrine and Covenants, general conference reports, the Church News and the Deseret News’ Church Almanac were utilized as primary and secondary sources for compiling information on the positions held and dates served by every general Church leader.

Church organization and position summaries were reviewed for accuracy by historians in the Church History Department. These summaries include citations for the sources used to compile the information.

The historians tracked Churchwide leadership positions that individuals have held in the Church, including:

• President of the Church
• First Presidency
• Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (including presidents, acting presidents, assistants and counselors)
• General Authority Seventy and Presidency of the Seventy (including First Council of the Seventy and first seven presidents)
• Church patriarch
• Presiding Bishopric
• Primary General presidency
• Relief Society General Presidency
• Sunday School General Presidency
• Young Women General Presidency
• Young Men General Presidency (including assistants)

Where possible, researchers traced the exact date an individual was called, set apart or sustained. Pinpointing exact dates for some early Church leaders proved challenging. If an exact date could not be determined, a circa date was used.

Visitors can search for individuals, organizations or positions using three different links:

• Links to individuals in the dataset
• Links to organizations in the dataset
• Links to positions in the dataset

Walker wrote that the Church History Department is “excited” to share this information in the Biographical Database.

“We hope it greatly helps with Church history research and getting to know the dedicated men and women who served and now serve Christ and His Church,” she wrote.

Providing Feedback

Feedback on the database is encouraged by clicking the “Submit Additional Information” button at the bottom of each profile.

Patrons who need additional assistance with the database can click on “Ask Us” service to connect with a research consultant.

Learn more about the Church History Biographical Database at ChurchofJesusChrist.org.