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"Along Those Lines"
2/8/2002 - Archive
Locating "Lost" Churches
Some of the best evidence of our ancestors' vital dates and locations
can be church records. This is especially true of the time periods before state,
county, and local governments began complying with legislation to issue birth
and death certificates. These records also are essential in cases in which government-produced
records have been lost or destroyed. (And no, Sherman did NOT destroy courthouses
on any march through Idaho!)
One of the challenges of researching ancestors' church records is that sometimes
the churches have disappeared. For whatever reason, the church to which you
thought your ancestral family belonged just cannot be found. In "Along Those
Lines . . ." this week, let's discuss some possible reasons for 'lost' churches,
and examine some possible strategies to help you locate them and their records.
What Happened to the Church?
There are any number of reasons why you cannot find a church. First and
foremost, be certain you are researching in the right location, and that you
are looking for the correct church name and the correct denomination. Church
names can be the same in a specific area. For example, in Rockingham County,
North Carolina, there are two Chapel Hill Churches (unrelated to the town of
Chapel Hill in another, distant county), three Mount Herman Churches, and two
New Hope Churches, among other duplicated names in the county. Churches with
the same name can also be different denominations, as I found when I located
a Baptist church and a Methodist in the same county, both known by the name
of Bushy Creek Church. Unless you knew them apart, and knew the denomination
of your ancestors, you might mistakenly research one and not the other. You
might also need to research both if you weren't sure of your ancestors' religious
affiliation.
Sometimes a church changes its name, or it may merge with another church. Churches
also divide into multiple congregations, and your ancestors may have moved to
the new church. In all these situations, both the old and the new churches'
names may have changed. Therefore you may need to conduct a genealogical search
of the churches themselves.
In some cases, a church may have dissolved. Perhaps the congregation's size
was dwindling, or its expenses were too great to maintain itself. Worse yet,
the church may have been destroyed by fire, flood, tornado, hurricane, or some
other disaster, and simply was not rebuilt. The governing body of the church,
such as a synod, presbytery, diocese, or other administrative entity, may have
directed the church to close and merge with another congregation.
It also is possible that an entire congregation relocated to another area, perhaps
even to another state. I found an example in the mid- 1700s in which an entire
congregation in which several of my ancestors were members that had been relocated,
along with its clergyman, from Maryland to North Carolina.
All of these are common reasons for your not being able to locate a church.
The question then becomes, "What happened to the church's records?" That is
where you need to be creative and do some historical research because there
may be essential records you want or need to continue your research.
Strategies for Locating the Records
Assuming that you do have the right church name, and are looking in the
right vicinity, there are some strategies to help you locate these elusive churches
and/or their records. It is essential that you devote some time to understanding
the denomination, its history, and its presence in the area where your ancestors
lived. This foundation will serve you well in tracking the 'lost' church and
its records. There also are many research paths and resources to use.
First of all, you might start with the United States Geological Survey's geographic
name server. Here you may enter the state and the county, and then use the
pull- down menu to select a feature type: church, in this case. Press Send Query
and see what you get. The list is not comprehensive, as I found when I looked
for Madison Presbyterian Church in Rockingham County, NC. It was not on the
list. Next, you might revert to selecting no feature type, but enter a keyword
into the Feature Name box. Send the query again and see what you get. If you
find the name of a church you were seeking, the research results list will tell
you the state, county, the latitude and longitude, and the name of a USGS map.
Click on the hyperlink in the Feature Name column and, on the next screen, click
on the hyperlink labeled 'Show Feature Location using maps produced from the
U.S. Census Bureau's Tiger Map Server.' You will be rewarded with a map of the
area with the church location indicated by a red dot, and you can zoom in for
more detail to see roads in the area. The roads are not named or numbered, so
you will need to consult a county road map, but this search can be eminently
rewarding.
If you cannot locate the church through the USGS name server, next try one of
the telephone search facilities on the Web, and search under business listings.
If at first you don't locate the church, consult a map and try a search of surrounding
communities. While this can be a cumbersome approach, it may prove useful.
You also can use your Web browser and a search engine to search on the name
of the church as an exact phrase. Remember, enclosing several words in quotation
marks in a search engine's search box causes it to be treated as an exact phrase.
Also, be sure to type everything in lower case because that causes the search
engine to look for matches typed in upper, lower, and mixed case -- more matches!
If you still have no success, you will need to contact the information professionals.
That means contacting the public library in the nearest town and speaking with
the reference librarian there. Ask for information about the church by name,
and be sure to tell the librarian the time period so that he or she can search
more effectively. There may be a county or local history in the library's collection
which tells about the church and what may have happened to it. It's also possible
that the church's records may have ended up in the library's possession. The
library can provide you with copies of selected pages, usually for a nominal
fee.
If the public library can't help you, don't despair. Escalate your inquiry to
an academic library at a nearby college or university. If they can't locate
anything, keep going and contact your state archives. It is highly possible
that they can assist you, or they themselves may have come into possession of
the records.
Other resources you should check would include local, county, and/or state historical
and genealogical societies. They may have materials containing historical data
about the church, or they also may have come into possession of the church's
records.
Whatever you do, don't overlook contacting other churches of the same denomination
in the area. The clergy, staff, or members may have knowledge of the 'lost'
church. They may have accepted the church's members into its congregation, and
therefore may have membership records that can prove helpful to you. If these
other churches cannot help, you will need to do some research about the denomination
to determine the structure of its governing body, which can vary by geographical
location, and the location of that body. You should contact them to request
information about the church in question. Be sure to inquire whether they have
the church's original membership records and minute books, or if they know where
they may be located. You then can devise a plan to obtain copies of any of your
family's records they may contain. That may mean traveling to the location or
contracting with a researcher to do the work for you.
No Set Sequence
The approaches I've listed above can be used by anyone. There is no set sequence
to use when searching for a 'lost' church, but generally you will want to start
with those steps you can do on your own. Internet research is a great place
to begin, followed with telephone calls, and then letter writing. I personally
have had success with tracing one family line (that of my maternal grandfather),
from a church in North Carolina, back to a prior church in Georgia, then to
Tennessee, and finally back to his place of birth in Alabama, all through the
use of membership records. (Letters of membership transfer were presented at
each new church by him or by his parents when they relocated, and the membership
records all indicated the name and location of the previous church.)
Sometimes you just have to think 'outside the box' and consider alternative
research paths and different sources than perhaps you have used before. You
will find that the strategies we've discussed above will go along way toward
locating those 'lost' churches and the records of your ancestors.
Happy Hunting!
George
George G. Morgan would like to hear from you at atl@ahaseminars.com
but, due to the volume of e-mail received, he is unable to answer every e-mail
message received. Please note that he cannot assist you with your individual
research.
Visit George's Web site at ahaseminars.com/atl
for information about speaking engagements.
Copyright 2002, MyFamily.com. All rights reserved.
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