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United States

Church Records in the U.S.
The United States is a country of religious diversity. Unlike many other countries, there has been no “state church,” except for a few periods in some of the early colonies.

Unfortunately, the United States did not require a civil registration or recording of births, marriages, and deaths until into the 20th Century. Sometimes church records are the only records containing that information about individuals and therefore, are a valuable substitute when vital records do not exist.

Information found in Church Records
The information kept by a specific church depended largely on the denomination of the church and the record keeper. Each denomination had guidelines (or lack of guidelines) on what the minister or other church clerks were to record.

Many denominations recorded christenings, baptisms, marriages, and burials of members of their congregation, which consequently recorded birth, marriage, and death dates. However, the information recording these events varies greatly from church to church. Additional information was often recorded when recording events such as parents’ names of couples getting married, god parents and witnesses (often family members and close friends), and even town of birth for some immigrants.

Baptist
American Baptist - Samuel Colgate Historical Library 1106 South Goodman Street Rochester, NY 14620-2532 Telephone: 716-473-1740 Internet: http:www.sbhla.org

National Association of Free Will Baptists

Executive Office 5233 Mt. View Road Antioch, TN 37013-2306 Mailing Address: FWB Executive Office P.O. Box 5002 Antioch, TN 37011-5002

Internet: http://www.nafwb.org/

Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archive 901 Commerce Street, Suite 400 Nashville, TN 37203-3630 Telephone: 615-244-0344 Internet: www.sbhla.org

Church of the Brethern
Brethren Historical Library and Archives 1451 Dundee Avenue Elgin, IL 60120 Phone: 847-742-5100 Ext. 294 Fax: 847-742-6103 (Be sure to include Brethren Historical Library and Archives on the fax) http://www.cob-net.org/fobg/library.htm

Congregational
Congregational Library 14 Beacon Street Boston, MA 02108 Telephone: 617-523-0470 Fax: 617-523-0470 Internet: www.congregationallibrary.org

Episcopal
Archives of the Episcopal Church 606 Rathervue Place P.O. Box 2247 Austin, Texas 78768 Phone: (512) 472-6816 Fax: (512) 480-0437 Email: research@episcopalarchives.org http://www.episcopalarchives.org/

Greek Orthodox
The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America 8-10 East 79th St. New York, NY 10075 Tel: (212) 570-3500 Fax: (212) 774-0251 Internet: http://www.goarch.org/arachdiocese/about

Jewish
American Jewish Archives 3101 Clifton Avenue Cincinnati, OH 45220 Telephone: 513-221-1875 Fax: 513-221-7812 Internet: www.americanjewisharchives.org

American Jewish Historical Society Library 2 Thornton Road Waltham, MA 02154 Telephone: 617-891-8110 Fax: 617-899-9208 Internet: www.ajhs.org

Latter-day Saints (Mormons)
Family History Library 35 N. West Temple Street Salt Lake City, UT 84150-3400 Telephone: 801-240-2364 Fax: 801-240-1584 Internet: www.familysearch.org

Other archives and libraries also have records. For information about records of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints see the LDS Records Research Outline.

Lutheran
Concordia Historical Institute The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod 801 De Mun Avenue St. Louis, MO 63105 Telephone: 314-505-7900 Fax: 314-505-7901 Internet: http://chi.lcms.org/

Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA Archives) 8765 West Higgins Road Chicago, IL 60631-4198 Telephone: 773-380-2818 Internet: www.elca.org/archives/

German-Russian Lutheran Ancestry

Odessa3.org - This site contains German-Russian emigrant ancestry in pocket settlements in mid-west states of North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska. Contains transcribed minutes of meetings, membership lists (some with parentage listed), birth, deaths, and marriages.]

If a local church is still active, it will be able to help find their records. The records of disbanded U.S. churches are at the ELCA Archives in Chicago. The archives has records of many congregations; those on microfilm can be borrowed for a small fee. Partial lists of church records in its collection are:


 * American Lutheran Church (ALC) Archives. ALC Congregations on Microfilm. Dubuque, Iowa: The Archives, [197-?]. (Family History Library fiche 6330690-93.) Arranged by state and city of congregation. The ALC Archives are now part of the ELCA Archives.
 * American Lutheran Church Shelf List Index to Their Church Records Microfilmed as of 1987. N.p., 1988. (Family History Library book 973 K2aL.)
 * A guide to most Lutheran churches and addresses is:
 * Lutheran Church Directory for the United States 1982. New York, New York: Lutheran Council in the USA, 1981. (Family History Library book 973 K24L.)

Methodist
United Methodist Archives Center Drew University Library P.O. Box 127 Madison, NJ 07940 Telephone: 201-408-3189 Fax: 201-408-3909 Internet: www.gcah.org

Mennonite
Mennonite Obituaries Index 1930-2001 online. Index is from The Mennonitische Rundschau. Index covers the world and includes the following: • Surname • Given Name • Maiden Name • Birth Year • Death Year • Place of death • Country • Issue • Page

There is also a Mennonite Immigrants list for the years 1872-1904 The Index provides the following information: • Surname • Given Name • Sex • Estimated Birth Date • Arrival Age • Stated Occupation • Individual RIN • Spouse RIN • Parent RIN • Ship Name • Ship Code

Presbyterian
Southern Region

Presbyterian Church (USA) Dept. of History 318 Georgia Terrace Box 849 Montreat, NC 28757 Telephone: 704-669-7061 Fax: 704-669-5369 Internet: http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/mont01.html

Northern Region

Presbyterian Historical Society 425 Lombard Street Philadelphia, PA 19147-1516 Telephone: 215-627-1852 Fax: 215-627-0509 Internet: www.history.pcusa.org

For their obituaries, news clippings, ministerial service, genealogies, histories, and biographical sketches see:


 * Presbyterian Historical Society (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). Miscellaneous Biographical Collection. Salt Lake City, Utah: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1967. (On 69 Family History Library films starting with 506383.)
 * Benedetto, Robert. Guide to the Manuscript Collections of the Presbyterian Church, USA. New York, New York: Greenwood Press, 1990. (Family History Library book 973 A3ben.) Indexed.

Ulster Ireland Presbyterian Immigrants An account of the (mainly) Ulster Presbyterians who immigrated to America in the 18th century and includes genealogical information. It also provides detail on the social and political conditions that the immigrants faced during that period. An extensive index is included.

Roman Catholic
Records of most parishes are kept in the individual parishes or in diocese offices. Guides to dioceses and parishes are:


 * Official Catholic Directory. Wilmette, Illinois: P. J. Kennedy and Sons, annual. (Family History Library book 282.025 Of2.)
 * Humling, Virginia. U.S. Catholic Sources: A Diocesan Research Guide. Salt Lake City, Utah: Ancestry, 1995. (Family History Library book 973 K2hu.)

For older North American church records kept by priests of the Order of the Holy Cross contact:

Holy Cross Provincial Archives P.O. Box 568 South Bend, IN 46556 Telephone: 219-631-5371 Internet: www.holycross.edu/departments/library/website/archives/jprovincials.html

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 UnitedStates 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.

Society of Friends (Quakers)
Orthodox Records

Magill Historical Library Haverford College Haverford, PA 19041 Telephone: 610-896-1175 Fax: 610-896-1102 Internet: www.haverford.edu/library/special/

Hicksite Records

Friends Historical Library Swarthmore College 500 College Avenue Swarthmore, PA 19081 Telephone: 610-328-8496 Internet: www.swarthmore.edu/library/friends/

Important guides to records include:


 * Hinshaw, William Wade. Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy. Six Volumes. www.erhs.info Ann Arbor, Michigan: Edwards Brothers, 1936-1950. (Family History Library book 973 D2he; film 432597-606; fiche 6051371-79.)
 * Hill, Thomas C. Monthly Meetings in North America: An Index. Second Edition. Cincinnati, Ohio: N.p., 1993. (Family History Library book 973 K22h 1998; film 1698282 item 11.) Alphabetical by monthly meeting. Gives address and sometimes location of records.

United Church of Christ
(Merger of the Evangelical and German Reformed churches and some Congregational churches)

Evangelical and Reformed Historical Society and Archives 555 West James Street Lancaster, PA 17603 Telephone: 717-290-8711 or 717-393-0654 Internet: www.erhs.info

The Family History Library has a substantial collection of original church records and transcripts on microfilm.

These include records of many denominations, particularly the Quaker, Presbyterian, Congregational, Lutheran, Reformed, and Roman Catholic churches in the eastern, southern, and midwestern states.

The library also has an extensive collection of records of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This includes membership records, temple records, and church censuses. Although these records pertain to all states and many countries, they are described in more detail in the Utah Research Outline and in the LDS Records Research Outline.

Church records are generally found in the Place Search of the Family History Library Catalog under [STATE], [COUNTY], [TOWN] - CHURCH RECORDS. Histories of churches are listed under [STATE], [COUNTY], [TOWN] - CHURCH HISTORIES.

Many christenings and marriages listed in the records of some churches (such as the Congregational, Dutch Reformed, and Lutheran) have been listed in the International Genealogical Index (IGI). This index is available online at:


 * www.familysearch.org.