Ancestry Magazine

Church records of our ancestors are so valuable they should be sought to document every vital event in our ancestors’ lives. Besides providing valuable data about our ancestors, they can also be invaluable in providing relevant information about an ancestor’s family and community.

Determine the Church
The key to successfully using church records in your research is to first determine the church or denomination of the ancestor in question. There are a number of sources to turn to in beginning this quest. The most important source is family records. What information is found in family Bibles, letters, diaries, and other family papers? What baptismal, marriage, confirmation, and other religious documents can be found amon g the collected family history? Document analysis of these records is critical to any successful research endeavor.

If you are lacking family papers and home-source documents, explore the history of the area where the family lived. Early in the history of many communities, churches served both a religious and a social role. You can find numerous instances where the proximity of a church was more important to an individual or family than the doctrinal teachings of the church. If there was only one church in a remote or frontier area, chances are that folks from many miles around attended it without strict regard for their traditional church ties. By studying topography and not letting the artificial boundary lines of counties and states have undo influence, you can discover possible churches an ancestor may have attended.

An ancestor’s church can also be determined from published materials. City, county, and area histories often chronicle the arrival of religious denominations and the construction of places of worship. The background of those compiled works provide can set a solid foundation for further research. Nice complements to these area histories are city, rural, and prairie farmer’s directories. They frequently contain lists of religious men and women as well as directories of churches by denomination. Occasionally, the actual directory entry for a particular church may provide more data about the people who attended. Directories of churches, religious bodies, and religious organizations should also be consulted.

Two Record Types
When searching for the records of a particular church or denomination, remember that there are two general types of records. One records data about the individuals in the church; the other provides evidence of the history of the church as an organization as well as the workings of its committees and meeting groups (e.g., vestries, councils, circles). Understandably, much emphasis is placed on the records of individual members, but important information may be lost if the records of the church as an organization are not explored as well.

Church records are valuable research documents because they frequently pre-date civil vital record registration. Historically, when a town was being settled, among the first entities to be constructed was a church. And with church records typically being kept from the founding of the church, they represent some of the earliest documents recorded for many communities. Similarly, when a new ethnic group began to populate an area, a gathering place for worship was often a priority for the community. Hence, whether recent past or distant past, church records are among the earliest evidence of ethnic groups in a particular locale.

Diversity Among Typical Records
The types of church records you may encounter are as varied and numerous as the denominations themselves. The three most commonly sought-after church records are the three that mirror their civil counterparts: baptismal or christening records, marriage records, and death or burial records. Indeed, each time you seek a civil vital or marriage record, the religious or church counterpart should also be sought.

Baptismal or christening records may provide the name of the person being baptized, the sex, the parents’ names, the name of the minister or officiator, the names of the sponsors or godparents, and the date of birth or age of person being baptized. Marriage records may contain the names of the two parties including the bride’s maiden name, the parents’ names, the name of the minister, the places of birth of the two parties, as well as their ages, residences, and any witnesses. (The data recorded on marriage records tends to vary more widely from church to church and among the various denominations than most other church records.) Death or burial records may contain the name of the deceased, the date and place of birth, the officiating clergy, the names of the surviving spous e and children, the date and cause of death, and the place of burial.

Researchers who are expecting to find all of the data elements listed above on most or every church record will be frustrated. That, however, should not discourage complete and thorough evaluation of every church record identified for an ancestor. Even if there are no formal columns in a church ledger book for particular data elements, you may find very useful information recorded in a “remarks” column and in the margins of any page. For instance, there is no column for sponsors or officiating clergy in the “baptism of infants” ledger of the Trinity English Evangelical Lutheran Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana, for the early twentieth century. However, for a number of entries, that information can be found under “remark.”

Other Church Records
In addition to baptismal, marriage, and death records, there are a host of other records that document the lives of members that many churches maintain. Whether a member record exists depends on a number of factors: the beliefs of the denomination, the time period of the record, the thoroughness of the clergy, even the geographical area in which the church existed.

Membership rolls, lists, or rosters are among the most common miscellaneous church records. For a number of Christian religions, communicant lists and confirmation records also document an individual as a part of a church congregation and may provide additional information about the person or family. Pew rentals can be used to assist in determining when an individual or family may have come to the town or region. With church cemetery records, you may find family plots containing several generations of burials.

When investigating church records for evidence of a particular ancestor, look not only for the particular individual being researched but also for every occurrence of the surname in all its variant spellings. Since many of our ancestral families lived in the same area fo r several generations or more, one church’s records may contain numerous meaningful documents for a number of generations.

To complement the records relating to individual members, the records of a church as an organization include numerous meeting records such as council or vestry minutes. And though these records often contain the dry details of running a church, they may also contain significant member information. Examples include the names of individuals being welcomed into the church (noting the town and church from which they came), individuals leaving the church, and individuals being disciplined.

Parishes, churches, synagogues, and other houses of worship may have compiled and published histories that contain significant historical details including many lists and rolls. And while church directories are more common in the mid- to late-twentieth century, look for the existence of these publications in earlier times as well. The earlier a church was founded, the greater the possibility that at some anniversary date a publication was compiled to detail its history.

When looking for specific church histories, keep a sharp eye peeled for denominational histories. They can provide a valuable context in which to seek additional records, learn of other not so well-known churches, and understand where particular church records might be archived.

Denominational histories often describe the rise and demise of smaller churches. These details can be critical in determining where to look for an ancestor’s church records when the church no longer exists. It is equally critical that the bibliographies and notes of denominational histories be scoured for leads to other published materials as well as the depositories and archives of the denomination.

Accessing the Records
Accessing the extant records from an ancestor’s church should not be too challenging. Many denominations are making the effort to preserve and publish their records in some form. Many historical and genealogical societies have indexed, abstracted, and transcribed church records and made these publications available in libraries and other research repositories. Many more individuals and organizations have published similar works in society magazines, newsletters, and quarterlies with thousands of these periodical publications being indexed in the Periodical Source Index (PERSI) .

The Family History Library, both through its website and through its many decades of microfilming all over the world, has brought thousands of church records within the reach of genealogists. At FamilySearch.org, genealogists can access the well-researched and well-written research outlines for every state. And there is a “Church Records” section on each research outline. This section typically tells a brief history of the religious groups in the state and provides lists of specific guidebooks and record inventories. These pages help determine what denominations were in a particular state and how to identify and access the various records.

Even more priceless are the thousands of reels of microfilmed church records listed in the Family History Library Catalog at FamilySearch.org. (Yes, there is more to this site than the robust databases of names!) Using the catalog to search by church name, denomination, or geographic location, determining if the records of your ancestral church have been microfilmed is easy. Through Family History Centers and other designated libraries, you can then order the microfilm for an ancestor’s church and view it at a repository in your own community.

Whether our families were faith-filled believers or ones that tended to be more wayward, the chances are great that church records documented parts of their lives. These church records are so plentiful that they are truly a blessing for genealogical researchers.

Curt B. Witcher, MLS, FUGA , is the president of the National Genealogical Society and the manager of the his torical genealogy department for the Allen County Public Library. He is also a popular genealogical lecturer.