I’ve also been lucky at the State of Utah Digital Archives, the Journal of Mormon History website, the Utah Historical Quarterly (I can’t find my link right now for a site that has downloadable PDF files), and BYU Master’s theses on Mormonism.

“My” group of family history geeks (which I mentioned in an earlier comment) always respond with delight to pictures and maps, so I’d add the digital collections of the University of Utah and BYU’s Harold B. Lee Library.

These are probably all obvious resources to experienced researchers, but they’re fairly new discoveries for me so I offer these links for my fellow beginners.

Finally, thanks again to everyone for the warm welcome, and especially to Ardis, whose thoughtfulness and generosity in every regard is just awesome. Oh, and I want to add a plug for the Keepa archives, where I’m continuing to learn both about Mormon history and about how to do it right.

An additional suggestion for researching your family, one which should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: never take online family trees (New Family Search, Family Search, RootsWeb, Ancestry, etc.) as fact. Check everything.

As mentioned in Scott’s post and the comments there, trace siblings. Figure out who the other people mentioned in the vital records are. They could be strangers off the street, but they usually aren’t.

I’ve recently had some success finding family pictures and records through Find A Grave by contacting the people who have submitted pictures or histories.

Matt, you’ve got your excuse ready next time you get a ticket — it’s in your genes, or you’re upholding family tradition, or “the sins of the fathers will be visited on the third and fourth generations,” or any number of other variants!