Michigan Church Records

Before 1900 the largest religious groups in Michigan were the Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran, and Roman Catholic churches. Information about early churches, ministers, and circuits is in published histories of some of the churches of Michigan.

The availability of Michigan church records is described in the Summer 1973 issue of Family Trails (see the "Periodicals" section). Other inventories of the church archives of several denominations, such as the Protestant Episcopal and Evangelical, have been published and are at the Family History Library.

The Michigan Historical Records Survey, WPA, completed a series of denominational record lists called Inventory of the Church Archives of Michigan. Check for these records in the Place Search of the Family History Library Catalog under:

MICHIGAN - CHURCH RECORDS - INVENTORIES, REGISTERS, CATALOGS.

The library also has copies of a few small collections of original Michigan church records. Some original manuscripts and published abstracts are also in the Bentley Historical Collection at the University of Michigan (seeMichigan Archives and Libraries for the address).

Many denominations have gathered their records into central repositories. You can write to the following addresses to learn where their records are located:

Baptist
Kalamazoo College Upjohn Library 1200 Academy Street Kalamazoo, MI 49006 Telephone: 616-337-7153 Fax: 616-337-7143 Web address: http://www.davenport.edu/davenport/Kalamazoo/library.htm

Lutheran
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA Archives) 8765 West Higgins Road Chicago, IL 60631-4198 Telephone: 312-380-2818 Fax: 312-380-2977 E-mail Address: [mailto:archives@elca.org archives@elca.org] (Note: Please include a mailing address when using the E-mail address.) Internet: http://www.elca.org

The records of Evangelical Lutheran churches in the United States that have been disbanded are located at the ELCA Archives in Chicago. If a church is still active, they will be able to help you locate their records.

The ELCA Archives has records of many congregations and those on microfilm can be borrowed for a small fee. A list of church records in its collection is given in:

ALC Archives. ALC Congregations on Microfilm. Dubuque, Iowa: The Archives, [197-?]. (Family History Library fiche 6330690–93.) Arranged by state and city of congregation. Fiche 6330690 includes Michigan. The ALC Archives are now part of the ELCA Archives.

Methodist
Shipman Library Adrian College 110 South Madison Street Adrian, MI 49221 Telephone: 517-265-5161 Fax: 517-264-3331 Internet: http://www.adrian.edu/library/resources/archive.php

Roman Catholic
THE DROUIN COLLECTION:

Drouin Collection 1621-1967 at Ancestry.ca. When searching these databases, be creative in the spellings as well as the various focuses in searching for an ancestor. The French language has many possible spellings for a name, as well as there are errors in the indexing.

This French-Canadian collection has over 15 million genealogical and vital records entries; they were microfilmed by the Institut Généalogique Drouin. In Quebec, under the French Regime, there were two sets of records kept: a copy for the civil government archives and a copy for the ecclesiastical church archives. The Drouin collection is a civil copy of these entries. Please note that the cutoff date of this collection is in the early 1940s; only a small percentage of entries were covered from 1948 to 1967.

This collection is divided into six databases: 1. Quebec Vital and Church Records, 1621-1967 2. Ontario French Catholic Church Records, 1747-1967, 3. Early U.S. French Catholic Church Records, 1695-1954, 4. Acadia French Catholic Church Records, 1670-1946, 5. Quebec Notarial Records, 1647-1942, and 6. Miscellaneous French Records, 1651-1941. For details about these six databases, see "The Drouin Collection: Six Databases" at https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/The_Drouin_Collection:_Six_databases.

Early U.S. French Catholic Church Records, 1695-1954: This database only contains the French Catholic parish records from the United States; in the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New York, and Pennsylvania. The types of records include baptisms, marriages, and burials as well as confirmations, dispensations, censuses, statements of readmission to the church, and so on. They are written mainly in French, as well as English, Latin, and Italian.

Diocese of Marquette 444 South Fourth Street P.O. Box 550 Marquette, MI 49855 Telephone: 906-225-1141 Fax: 906-225-0437 Internet: http://www.dioceseofmarquette.org/

Archdiocese of Detroit 1234 Washington Boulevard Detroit, MI 48226 Telephone: 313-237-5800 Fax: 313-237-4642 Internet: http://www.aodonline.org/AODOnline/AODOnline.htm

Diocese of Saginaw 5800 Weiss Street Saginaw, MI 48603-2799 Telephone: 517-799-7910 Fax: 517-797-6670 Internet: http://www.saginaw.org/

Diocese of Grand Rapids 660 Burton Street S.E. Grand Rapids. MI 4950 Telephone: 616-243-0491 Fax: 616-243-4910 Internet: http://www.dioceseofgrandrapids.org/

Diocese of Lansing 300 West Ottawa Lansing, MI 48933 Telephone: 517-342-2440 Fax: 517-343-2515 Internet: http://www.dioceseoflansing.org/

For information concerning Catholic records, see:

Inventory of the Church Archives of Michigan, The Roman Catholic Church, Archdiocese of Detroit. Detroit, Michigan: Michigan Historical Records Survey, 1941. (Family History Library book 977.4 K2hca; film 962282 item 1; fiche 6051290.)