How churchofchrist.org Indexes Its Source Documents (1829–1834)

Updated

churchofchrist.org is a document index and analysis site, not a general denominational homepage. It covers only the Church of Christ record from its 1829 formation to the May 1834 vote changing the name to "The Church of the Latter Day Saints," and it states plainly that it covers nothing before or after that range. If you want to find a specific paper, person, place, or revelation from those six years, the site is organized to get you there through four routes: a year-by-year chronology, subject indexes for revelations, people, and places, a source index, and a site search.

The organizing spine: a six-year chronology

Every subject on the site branches from one of six years. The chronology page presents each year as a short summary with a link to a full paper:

Year What the site indexes
1829 The Twelve Witnesses — priesthood restoration, translation, copyright, all before a church was organized
1830 Incorporation at Fayette, New York (April 6) and the first dispute over revelation
1831 The Law dictated at Kirtland, Ohio, and Independence, Missouri named as the New Jerusalem
1832 Creation of the church president office, the Hiram attack, and the Vision of the degrees of glory
1833 The Plat and the House, and the expulsion of twelve hundred Saints from Jackson County
1834 The name-change vote at Kirtland

The practical consequence: you do not browse by topic first. You pick a year, read the summary, then open the full paper. The site's own framing is that the record ends at the 1834 vote — the Kirtland Temple, dedicated in 1836, carries the later name, and is outside the indexed range.

Subject indexes: revelations, people, places

Beyond the chronology, the site maintains separate indexes:

  • Revelations — sections dated 1829–1834, each indexed and analyzed, and each linked to its source.
  • People — witnesses, officers, and members named in the record.
  • Places — locations named in the 1829–1834 record.

The indexing principle is name-as-recorded. People and places are listed under the names that appear in the period documents, so searching for a modern spelling or a later institutional name may not match. Start from the year summary if a name search comes up empty.

Methodology and the source index

Two sections explain and support the indexing itself. Methodology describes how the documents are organized and analyzed. The Source Index is where individual papers are listed with their sources. The site describes its output as an "Analysis & Source Index, 1829–1834" — analysis and citation are presented together rather than as separate layers, so a claim in a paper can be traced to its linked source.

Finding a specific document

The site provides a Search this site function. A workable sequence:

  1. Search for the document, person, or place by the name used in the period record.
  2. If the search is thin, open the relevant year in the chronology and read its summary.
  3. Follow the "Read the paper →" link to the full analysis.
  4. Use the linked source to check the underlying document.

The interactive Plat is a separate entry point: the site hosts a plat of the City of Zion, circa June 1833, with the manuscript credited to the Joseph Smith Papers.

What this site is and is not

It is a focused research index for a six-year window, useful if you are tracing organizational, legal, or architectural records — councils, quorums, presidencies, the Law of 1831, the Plat and House of 1833 — and want each item tied to a source. It is not a complete history of the movement, and it deliberately stops at 1834. The site's materials are in English. No pricing or access restrictions are stated in the available site information, so check the site directly before assuming anything about access.