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In the 19th century, Mormon missionaries fanned out across Europe, preaching in England, Scandinavia, Germany, Italy, and beyond. Converts often embraced a central Mormon tenet: gathering to Zion – the community of Saints in the United States. Drawn by both religious zeal and the promise of community, tens of thousands of European converts left home to join fellow Latter-day Saints in America. In fact, by the late 1800s an estimated 60,000–70,000 members had emigrated to Utah Valley, of whom 98% were from Europe – 75% from Britain alone. Early on, Brigham Young emphasized that the “Mormon Trail” would stretch “from Liverpool to Salt Lake City,” forming one of the longest emigration routes of that era. Persecution and economic hardship also pushed people to leave. Converts often sold farms, worked extra years to save fare, or borrowed from the Church’s emigration fund, all to pay the steep cost of the Atlantic crossing and transcontinental trek.
Sailing from Britain: Ports and PreparationsSailing from Britain: Ports and Preparations
Missionary work in Britain was astonishingly successful. By 1840, hundreds of converts were being baptized every month in England and Wales, and early mission presidents organized formal emigration companies to ship them to America. The first official Mormon immigrant company set sail from Liverpool on 6 June 1840 aboard the ship Britannia. Notably, by 1845 fully a quarter of the population of Nauvoo, Illinois – then a bustling church center – had been born in the British Isles. In the decades following, roughly 52,000 British converts crossed the ocean to join the Saints in America.
Liverpool dominated these journeys. By the 1840s it was “the most active international port of emigration in the world” thanks to rail connections throughout Britain. Church leaders even opened mission offices there. More than 80% of all 19th-century Mormon emigrants left Europe via Liverpool. (The next-largest contingent came from Scandinavia, often sailing first from Copenhagen.) Missionaries stationed in Liverpool guided converts: greeting them off trains, helping them purchase supplies, organizing ward meetings on the dock, and even blessing groups before they boarded. Emigrants were warned against rogues in port – an 1841 epistle cautioned newcomers to seek advice from the missionary agent in Liverpool, bundle into companies for safety, and buy provisions in bulk to save money. Indeed, emigrants learned to travel in organized companies. Traveling together allowed them to charter whole ships affordably, stave off loneliness, and share leader guidance from experienced elders.
British converts were the largest group, but Scandinavian Mormons formed the second-largest ethnic contingent gathering to Utah in the 19th century. Beginning in the 1850s, Mormon missionaries in Denmark, Sweden and Norway baptized thousands. These northern converts usually embarked from their home ports on ships bound for England. For decades nearly 200 vessels carried Latter-day Saint emigrants from Scandinavia to Hull on England’s east coast. Hull was a convenient harbor: from there people took a short railway crossing across northern England to Liverpool, where the Church had its European headquarters. Once in Liverpool, the transatlantic voyage could begin. Between 1852 and 1894, about 24,000 Scandinavian converts made the journey to Utah by this route – a testament to their strong “spirit of gathering.”
German-Swiss Routes and the Hamburg PassageGerman-Swiss Routes and the Hamburg Passage
Mormon missions in Germany, Switzerland, and the German-speaking regions drew many converts in the 1850s–1870s as well. The missionaries there often coordinated with the British office to send emigrants west. Typically, converts from central Europe traveled by rail or river to a northern port. Hamburg, a major German port, became an important departure point: in some years the Church chartered entire ships directly from Hamburg to the United States, bypassing Liverpool completely. Even when destined to connect with other Saints in Liverpool, German and Swiss emigrants stayed in strong contact with their mission leaders. Mission presidents and elders in Europe acted like travel agents – registering members for passage, collecting funds or Perpetual Emigration Fund deposits, and even accompanying groups of emigrants overland to Liverpool. These leaders helped organize final purchases and farewell meetings before the sea journey. Through such networks, new German-speaking Saints felt supported and knew they would have fellow countrymen waiting for them in America.
Converts from Italy, France, and BeyondConverts from Italy, France, and Beyond
Besides the British, Scandinavian, and German converts, smaller LDS communities arose elsewhere. In Italy, missionary Lorenzo Snow in 1850 focused on the Waldensian Protestants of Piedmont; in 12 years of mission work some 72 Italian converts eventually immigrated to Utah (12 families and 7 individuals). These pioneers infused the Church in Utah with new blood, and today thousands of Italians trace ancestry to those early emigrants. France also had early converts: missionaries arrived in Paris in 1849 and organized a branch by 1850. Likewise, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales produced hundreds of immigrants who followed the Liverpool route. In each case, emigrants left behind linguistic and cultural communities, but were promised a spiritual “Zion” in the Rocky Mountains. Even in Eastern Europe, proto-congregations appeared (among Poles, Austrians, etc.), though political barriers often delayed their emigration. Over time, nearly every corner of Europe with LDS converts saw some members make the trek, driven by faith and often aided by returning missionaries as guides.
Across the Atlantic – Life Aboard ShipAcross the Atlantic – Life Aboard Ship
Once they left Europe, emigrant Saints faced weeks at sea. In many ways their ocean voyage became a floating village. Families traveled in steerage class together, under the watch of Church-appointed leaders who enforced a schedule of daily prayers, meals, and communal worship services. Historian Leonard Arrington described a typical day: “The companies arose at an early hour, made their beds… At seven they assembled for prayer… Church services were held morning and evening… [and] during the month-long passage, concerts, dances, contests, and schools were held almost daily.” Scandinavian converts often learned English in these shipboard schools. Children played on deck under watchful adults, while many women stitched wagon covers and tents below to prepare for the journey west in America.
One immigrant’s diary captures the mix of fear and faith: “It was a dreary winter day on which I went to Liverpool… When I arrived and saw the ocean that would soon roll between me and all I loved, my heart almost failed me… But I had laid my idols on the altar. There was no turning back,” wrote Priscilla Stains of her 1844 voyage. Thousands of converts felt the same resolve: leaving families behind, they trusted in promises that forsaking home for the gospel would bring lasting joy. Even outsiders were struck by the emigrants’ conduct. Charles Dickens visited an LDS emigrant ship (the Amazon) in 1863 expecting rowdiness, but observed instead a disciplined “family” of travelers. He wrote in The Uncommercial Traveler that “it would be difficult to find eight hundred people together… and find so much beauty and so much strength and capacity for work among them.” To his surprise, Dickens later admitted the Saints “did not deserve” the ill repute with which he had come aboard.
Across the American West – Trails to UtahAcross the American West – Trails to Utah
The journey did not end in New York or New Orleans. Upon arrival in a port city, Mormon immigrants typically joined organizing centers like Elmira, New York, or Kanesville, Iowa. There they repaid final debts or collected supplies. Then they would trek west as part of wagon trains or (after 1856) handcart companies. From staging towns like Council Bluffs (or earlier, Florence, Nebraska), entire emigrant companies began the overland march. They faced roughly 1,300 miles of plains, mountains, and deserts to reach Utah’s Salt Lake Valley. Often several families shared one covered wagon or handcart, and church-appointed captains kept disciplined campsites. One historian noted that Mormon companies, unlike ordinary emigrant groups, formed “a Family under strong and accepted discipline, with every provision for comfort, decorum, and internal peace,” and that they passed each other onward “from friend to friend” until reaching their “promised home”.
The overland journey was grueling: hot summers, cold winters, illness and accidents were constant threats. In winter or early spring, the famous Willie and Martin handcart companies suffered tragedy, yet most emigrants made it safely. By the time they reached Salt Lake City or outlying settlements like Ogden and Provo, weary travelers found relatives, fellow-countrymen, or church welfare agents ready to welcome them. Even then, the journey bound communities: songs were sung and diaries kept on the trail, ensuring that later generations could remember the route each family took.
By 1890 (when church leaders ended the formal gathering policy), nearly 100,000 Latter-day Saints had crossed the oceans and plains to join the Utah settlements. For modern genealogists, this migration history is a tapestry of human stories – faith-driven departures, months at sea, and month-long marches to a new life. Though much has changed in transportation, the echoes of those journeys still live on in family letters, diaries, and even the very routes (railroads and highways) that ultimately followed the old trails. Understanding how and why ancestors left Europe to traverse Liverpool or Hamburg’s docks, trek across the Atlantic, and brave the plains helps today’s family historians connect personally with that epic saga of faith and migration.
See alsoSee also
Explore more about European Mormon migrationExplore more about European Mormon migration
- Utah - Collection Catalog at MyHeritage
- Researching Mormon Women webinar at Legacy Family Tree Webinars
- Emigration - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - Church History
- Latter-day Saint Scandinavian Migration through Hull, England, 1852-1894 - BYU Scholars Archive
- Religious Flight and Migration: Mormons - Library of Congress
- The Convert Immigrants - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - Church History
- The Mormonism and Migration Project - Claremont Graduate University
References