Turley was born in
Fort Worth, Texas, to Richard and Betty Jean Nickle Turley. Turley attended high school in
Salt Lake City,
Utah, when he met Shirley Swensen. They would later marry in the
Salt Lake Temple and have six children. Turley aspired to be a
lawyer, by his father's urging, and an
Institute of Religion teacher, by his deep personal interest in
LDS Church history. From 1975 to 1977, Turley served as an
LDS missionary to the
Japan Tokyo Mission. Then, at BYU's
J. Reuben Clark Law School, he was editor of the
law review and elected to the
Order of the Coif. Upon graduation in April 1985, Turley received the
Hugh B. Brown Barrister's Award for top classroom performance.
Church employment After passing the Utah State
Bar examination, Turley practiced law briefly before being hired by the LDS Church in January 1986. He was appointed assistant managing director of the Historical Department, to replace the retiring Earl Olson. At this time, the department was already heavily involved in the investigation of
Mark Hofmann, the historical documents forger who attempted to hide his fraud by murder during the previous October. and in 1996 he also became managing director of the Family History Department. While over the family history department Turley oversaw the launching of
familysearch.org. In 2000, the Family History and Church History departments merged into the Family and Church History Department, over which Turley remained as managing director. In these roles, Turley oversaw the
Church Archives, the
Church History Library, and the
Museum of Church History and Art, the
Family History Library, the FamilySearch Center, the
Granite Mountain Records Vault, and over 4,000 branch
family history centers. These comprise one of the largest collections of
Mormon history,
western history, and
genealogy in the world.
Digital projects In the department, Turley managed several notable electronic projects.
FamilySearch, a massive genealogical
database website, was launched in 1999. Other records were also released on
CD-ROM, including the
Freedman’s Bank (of
African-American records), the
Mormon Immigration Index,
European Vital Records Indexes, and 1880s
censuses, including the
1881 British Census, which won the
Besterman/
McColvin Award from the
Library Association of Great Britain. In 2002,
BYU Press published
Selected Collections From the Archives of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which Turley edited. On 74
DVDs, this released numerous important and rare early documents of the church, which some scholars and historians called "the most important event in modern Mormon publishing," and "an achievement of such significance that no praise, no matter how effusive, seems sufficiently laudatory."
Assistant Church Historian More changes came to the department after
Marlin K. Jensen became
Church Historian in 2005. The department again staffed professional researchers, the
Joseph Smith Papers Project sharply expanded, and a new
Church History Library was announced. On March 12, 2008, the Family and Church History Department announced it was becoming two departments again: the Family History Department and the
Church History Department. In addition, Turley became the
Assistant Church Historian, an ecclesiastical position that was unfilled for over 25 years.
Steven L. Olsen, the department's associate managing director, took Turley's old position of managing director. For his contributions to public history while overseeing the church's archives, records, museums, and historic sites, Turley was awarded the 2013 Herbert Feis Award from the
American Historical Association.
Public affairs department In April 2016, the church announced that Turley would move from the Church History Department and become the successor to
Michael Otterson as the managing director of the church's public affairs department. The two worked closely together through a transition period until Otterson's departure in August, to accept an assignment as a
temple president. Among other events and activities in this new role, Turley traveled to the Philippines in December 2017 where he gave three devotionals on Church History. ==Awards==