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About the Project

The Winter Quarters Project is an ongoing effort to identify and publish information about members of the LDS Church who lived in the Winter Quarters, Nebraska, and Middle Missouri areas between the years 1846 and 1853. Thousands of Mormon pioneers were migrating west after their exodus from Nauvoo and Hancock County in 1846. They resided in a temporary encampment west of the Missouri River known as Winter Quarters, located in present-day Florence, Nebraska. After 1847, many moved east across the Missouri and and resided in some ninety plus settlements in western Iowa. Many individuals are buried in the area, most without headstones or grave markers. The goal of the Winter Quarters Project is to identify settlements and write the histories of those settlements. Included in the history are possible locations of associated cemeteries and as many of these early pioneers as possible.

The Winter Quarters Project is an independent research venture. New genealogical and historical information is added to this website as it is discovered. This website identifies:

  • Deaths and causes of death at Cutler's Park and Winter Quarter
  • Cutler's Park burial plot map
  • Biographies of those who are buried in Cutler's Park
  • Winter Quarters burial plot map
  • Biographies of those who are buried in Winter Quarters
  • Settlements and related histories and residents of those settlements
  • Videos and interviews relating to cemeteries and local history sites

See also the visitor's center and historic site Mormon Trail Center at Historic Winter Quarters.

You can email the site administrator at shaunaandersonyoung@gmail.com.

Any questions, ideas, or suggestions are welcome. Thank you for your support.

Project Team

Dr. Shauna C. Anderson Dr. Shauna C. Anderson Young is an emeritus professor of Microbiology and Molecular Biology at Brigham Young University and Assistant Dean of Life Sciences Student Services and also the Program Director of Medical Laboratory Science in the College of Life Sciences at BYU. Dr. Anderson Young is the project director and has also spent time researching in the Winter Quarters area.
Jeanne Gubler Jeanne Gubler Blackburn is a retired Administrative Assistant for Life Sciences Student Services at Brigham Young University. She has traveled with Dr. Anderson Young to the Winter Quarters area.
Tiffany Taylor Bowles worked on the Winter Quarters Project when she was a student at BYU. She now works as an educator at the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City and enjoys continuing to help with this important work.
Megan Kunz is a law student at Brigham Young University. She graduated with her BA in history in 2013. Megan hails from Amalga, Utah and loves the examples of faith and endurance that the pioneers demonstrated. She is currently researching stories and interesting facts about the family members of those who died at Winter Quarters.
Tiffany Hess graduated in English from B.Y.U. She has been doing genealogy research for 26 years. She co-authored a family history book with her sister, Natalie. She is interested in Winter Quarters, because she enjoys researching the pioneers and their stories. Her 3rd great-grandfather died at Mt. Pisgah.
Lisa Francis Lisa Francis Keovongsa is an undergraduate student at Brigham Young University studying Dietetics and International Development. She is from Brookings, South Dakota and finds much interest in the history of pioneers and their travels. She currently researches the Church settlements in and residents of Pottawattamie County.
Camille Carr Camille Carr Parkinson is an undergraduate student at Brigham Young University majoring in Special Education: Mild to Moderate Disabilities with a minor in Teaching English Language Learners. Sioux City, Iowa is where she calls home. She loves learning about the stories of the pioneers and early church history while she researches residents of settlements in the Pottowattamie County area.
Maddie Burnett is an Undergraduate at Brigham Young University majoring in history with a minor in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. She is from Aurora, Colorado and she is very interested in learning and researching the pioneers and early Church history. She is currently researching cemeteries and settlements for the Winter Quarters project.
View Past Project Team Members


We would like to extend a special thanks to the Historical Pioneer Research Group, based in Omaha, Nebraska, for their generous travel and research assistance.

We would also like to thank Myrtle Stevens Hyde, whose book, Kanesville Advertisements (Ogden, Utah: Published by the Author, 1997), and manuscript, "Kanesville Conditions," have provided valuable information about the Winter Quarters communities.