The majority of the Sonne collection is research on ships, steamboats, and sailing ships. Sonne collected a vast amount of research on individual sailing vessels, ship crews, and the passengers aboard the ships. The research in the collection form the basis of Sonne's maritime history books, Saints on the Sea and Ships, Saints, and Mariners: A Maritime Encyclopedia of Mormon Migration. Boxes 1-13 contain files on individual ships, steamships, and steamboats. Included in the files are Mormon migration information, passenger lists, and even some journals. These ship files would be valuable for anyone interested in maritime history, Mormon migration, or even family history. Boxes 14-16 give more information on maritime history, including detailed information on the ship Brooklyn, the ship that carried the Mormon immigrants to California. Also in the collection are two boxes of Sonne's correspondence concerning his books. Boxes 25-29 contain drafts of his books, including the publishers and author's drafts and also an alphabetized master copy of the maritime encyclopedia in box 29. Other boxes contain research on other topics, including Native Americans (box 21), and prominent Mormon pioneers and frontiersmen (box 20). The Conway Sonne collection is a valuable source of information about maritime history, Mormon history, and Western American history, as well as a fascinating illustration of how an author organizes and develops a maritime history book. Photographs from the collection were removed to be processed separately.