Ask Us

At the Church History Library, we receive many requests for help finding missionary acquaintances. While we are unable to provide contact information for living persons, there are a wide variety of sources available that may be helpful in your search:

FamilySearch.org

FamilySearch can sometimes be used to find living people. Follow these steps:

Using an internet search, find a deceased ancestor of the person you are looking for.
Find the deceased ancestor in FamilySearch, and then look at the list of people who have posted photos or other documents on the ancestor’s page.
Reach out to those people for information.
For example, if you wanted to find a former missionary companion named Thomas Johnson, first try to find him mentioned in an obituary of his parent, grandparent, or other close relative, since obituaries often list the names of the deceased’s family. To do this, search the internet for “Thomas Johnson obituary” or “Tom Johnson obituary.” In the case of someone with a very common name (which happens frequently, as in this case), add other information. For instance, if you know Tom Johnson grew up in Sandy, Utah, you could add “Sandy, Utah” or “Sandy, UT” to the search. You could also include “LDS” or “Mormon” in the search, since obituaries of Latter-day Saints frequently mention their Church membership. 

Thus, putting all these search terms together, the search engine will look for the obituary of a Latter-day Saint with the last name of Johnson who is said to be “survived by” a son, grandson, or brother named Tom. Obituaries will also often include maiden and married names, which is helpful if you are looking for a sister missionary who got married after you lost contact.

Once you find a possible match, you can look up the deceased person in FamilySearch using information from the obituary. Check the FamilySearch record for any contributed photos or documents; if there are any, look for “Contributed By” in the details field of the photograph or document, where there will be an email address or other means to contact whoever added it to FamilySearch. When you reach out to the contributor, explain that you are looking for a Tom Johnson who served a mission with you and that you think he might be related to the deceased person. Do they know of a relative named Tom? If so, could they put you in touch? 

Mission Reunions (Church News)

Brief missionary reunion notices are published in the Deseret News newspaper as a public service in conjunction with general conference each April and October. This website lists upcoming reunions.

LDS Mission Network

This site attempts to index mission websites. At the time of writing this post, the site advertised that it may shut down.

Alumni Associations

Another place to look is the alumni association(s) at a college or university where your missionary may have attended. Keep in mind that most, if not all, alumni associations require an account to view alumni lists.

BYU Alumni Association
BYU–Idaho Alumni Association
BYU–Hawaii
Ensign College
University of Utah
Utah State University
Weber State University
Southern Utah University
Dixie State College
Snow College