Utah Pioneers

“They say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.” — Banksy.

Is this a fear that our ancestors now realize? Will those who have sacrificed all so that we live comfortably be forgotten and lost from memory too? Will their stories vanish, and their names never mentioned again? Forgetting our ancestors will happen unless we try to keep their memories alive and gratitude in our hearts for giving their all for us, their posterity.

There are several organizations whose goal is to keep these memories alive. One is the Daughters of Utah Pioneers (DUP). DUP is “dedicated to honoring the names and achievements of the men, women, and children who founded Utah.” DUP maintains a collection of over 42,000 pioneer histories. They consider an ancestor a pioneer if they came to the Utah Territory, died crossing the plains, or was born before May 10, 1869, when the railroad came to the territory.

DUP also has a fabulous website, isdup.org. On this website, they have links to indexes of histories and photos. These indexes are valuable to see if DUP has information on your ancestors. You can order a history from their website. To request a history, you must either be a member of DUP or a direct descendant of pioneers. You will need to send a copy of your pedigree chart and highlight ALL the names for which you want histories. Some pioneers have multiple histories. The histories cost 25 cents per page with a minimum of $1.00. They will contact you about the cost of your order before they send it to you. They also have a Photo tab. Under this tab is an index for the photos they have in their collection. Photos are sent on a CD and cost $5.00 an image. You can also get copies of the histories and photos by going to the Daughters of Utah Pioneers main museum in Salt Lake City, Utah at 300 N. Main St. At the museum you can see the histories and photos firsthand.

As the Daughters of Utah Pioneers theme song goes “And we’ll love them more and more, as we read their history o’er.” We are who we are because they were who they were. Let us not let our ancestors die the death of being forgotten.