Swedish American: Luther Seminary Archives

Luther Seminary Archives (ELCA Region 3 Archives)

Luther Seminary Campus Room 308 Gullixson Hall 2481 Como Avenue St. Paul, Minnesota 55108 651-641-3238 Website: http://www.luthersem.edu/archives/ Paul A. Daniels, Archivist and Curator Email: pdaniels@luthersem.edu

Kari Bostrom Region 3/Luther Seminary Archives Assistant Fine Arts Committee Contact 651-641-3205

From their website:

"The Luther Seminary Archives holds two major collections. The founding collection is the archive of Luther Seminary and its precursors, Augsburg Seminary, the Hauge Synod School, Red Wing Seminary, and Northwestern Lutheran Theological Seminary. Since 1988, the Luther Seminary has also held the Archives of ELCA Region 3, along with records of many of the precursor church bodies of the synod. Records in the ELCA Region 3 collection date from 1843 and cover church communities in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota, with additional material from Wisconsin and Iowa. Records on these church bodies is voluminous: nearly 15,000 linear feet of records. Many of the materials are in the various languages of the founding church groups. Among the precursors to the present church were the Norwegian Synod, the Lutheran Free Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, and a number of smaller church bodies. Sizable documentation also exists for inter-Lutheran cooperation and for numerous prominent individuals, whose personal papers are also deposited in the Archives."

Research queries:

A good person to contact about Lutheran records (especially non-Swedish congregations) would be the assistant archivist.

There is no established research fee. Usually if they have it they will research it but if not they will refer researchers to other places.

The congregations with Swedish backgrounds are usually in the Augustana Synod, and their records are stored at the Swenson Swedish Immigrant Center on the campus of Augustana College in Rock Island IL. For Swedish background congregational questions contact the Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center or the Swedish Genealogical Society of Minnesota.

Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center Augustana College 639 38th Street Rock Island IL 61201-2296 Tel: 309.794.7204 Fax: 309.794.7443 E-mail: sag@augustana.edu www.augustana.edu/swenson/index.htm/

Swedish Genealogical Society of Minnesota