Indiana Bible Records

Indiana

Many families traditionally recorded births, marriages, and deaths in the family Bible, family record, or Book of Remembrance. Bible records may sometimes be the only record for vital information. As private, family records, Bible records are not available largely in any one collection. Family Bibles that are no longer in possession of the family may be at a historical or genealogical society. Also, it long has been the mission of the Genealogical Records Committee of the National Society of Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) to publish Bible and other similar family records, and many of these volumes are available. An example is: Miscellaneous Bible Records of Indiana. Indiana: Indiana Daughters of the American Revolution, 1995. (Series 2, Vol. 62, Indiana Daughters of the American Revolution Genealogical Records Committee Report.)

Start with the free Index to Early Bible Records (pre-1830; 17,000 entries).

The Indiana Bible Records Index in the Genealogy Division of the Indiana State Library in Indianapolis is a card file index to the Bible and family record books submitted annually by the Indiana DAR organization. Copies of the books indexed are located in the Genealogy Division of the Indiana State Library. In addition, an attempt is underway at the national level to create an everyname index to all of the Genealogical Records Committee volumes that are housed at the DAR Library in Washington, D.C. Currently, about 20 percent of the books, totaling more than 20 million names, have been indexed. This partial Genealogical Records Committee Index is searchable online.

The Family Records Department of the Indiana Historical Society (IHS) in Indianapolis houses information from Bibles and other records donated to the IHS by individuals. Also, The Genealogy Center of the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne has digitized images and corresponding transcriptions of Bible records in its Family Bible Records database.

Abstracts and transcriptions of Bible records frequently are published in genealogical and local history periodicals, but not always in the journals of the counties to which the Bible records pertain. For this reason, an additional resource that genealogists should use when searching for Bible records is the PERiodical Source Index at HeritageQuestOnline.com.

Copies, or abstracts of old family Bibles that are no longer known to exist, may survive in Revolutionary War Pension application files at NARA, Washington, D.C., which are available online at three commercial websites: Ancestry, Footnote, and Heritage Quest Online.

Other collections include:

Daughters of the American Revolution. Bible and Genealogical Records. Salt Lake City, Utah: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1972. (Family History Library film  item 2.) This includes a name index to the Bible records.

Payne, Elizabeth S. Bible and Cemetery Records. Two Volumes. Salt Lake City, Utah: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1985. (Family History Library book volume 1; film  items 4-5 [volumes 1-2].) This includes a surname indes.

Indiana Bible records are listed in the Place Search of the FamilySearch Catalog under:

INDIANA - BIBLE RECORDS

Web Sites
Many counties in Indiana have bible records posted on USGENWEB and other sites. The following are but a small sample:

Allen County Public Library Family Bible Records Page: