Armstrong said the scholarly conference will feature an invited presentation by historian Richard Turley focusing on Pratt and the massacre. Turley, director of the LDS Family and Church History Department, has worked for several years with two co-authors to produce a book about the massacre to be published by Oxford University Press. No definitive date has been set for its release, but it is believed to be in the final stages of production.

Organizers of the scholarly conference expect some 200 participants. Several presenters are from Brigham Young University, and Armstrong said his only regret is that he wasn't able to find more Arkansas historians to participate.

Patty Norris, president of the Mountain Meadows Massacre Descendants, said the encampment was planned April 21-22 to accommodate the schedules of some participants and to avoid Easter weekend. Historical accounts to people who witnessed he wagon train leave put the first dates of departure around April 5, with others departing a few days later, she said.

This will be the group's first April gathering, though descendants gather annually at Mountain Meadows, north of St. George, to remember their ancestors. This year, that commemoration will run Sept. 8-11 and will include a public memorial service on the 11th to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the massacre.

Norris' great-great-great grandfather was Alexander Fancher, captain of the wagon train. His wife, Eliza, and their nine children traveled together, and all were killed in the massacre except the two youngest children, a son and a daughter, she said.

The surviving daughter was her great-great grandmother.

"We want to ensure that our people are never forgotten — that their graves are honored and appropriately marked," she said. "We want to be a connection between family members. I've found a lot of cousins and family members I didn't know I had."

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E-mail: carrie@desnews.com