Religious records are often overlooked as a family history resource, and in doing so we may be cheating ourselves out of some great information and new leads. As if the information contained in them were not enough, these records in some cases predate civil records. While the types of records available vary from religion to religion and even from church to church, the baptismal or christening, confirmation, marriage, death registers, membership, and other records of the church are often among the most valuable to be found in family history research.
Besides the important event dates provided by religious records, sponsors and witnesses listed in these records often turn out to be immediate or collateral family members, or may be neighbors from the old country who traveled with your ancestors.
How Do You Find Them?
The first step in locating these records is determining what church or synagogue your ancestors attended. If you already know the religion of the ancestor(s) in question, directories can often help pin down the closest church to where the family lived. If there is more than one in the area, you might want to see if one of the congregations has a predominant ethnicity that is the same as that of your ancestors.
It is also good to keep an open mind. Your ancestors may have attended a church that was not of their denomination simply because there were no churches with their particular religious affiliation available in the area, or they may have converted to another religion for a time because of a marriage, to escape religious persecution, or for other reasons.
Civil records may also contain clues to religious affiliation. Particularly useful are death records, as well as cemetery records and obituaries. Civil marriage records will often contain the name of the person who officiated at the ceremony. By looking up the name of the person who performed the ceremony in a directory, you may be able to find what church he or she was affiliated with.
Probates may also provide clues, since many people bequeathed money or lands to religious institutions. Religious institutional histories may also contain information about donations.
Once you have located the church, you will need to find out where the records are kept. Sometimes they are kept at the church level, or they may be kept in a central repository or denominational archives. If the church still exists, a quick phone call to the office may answer this question. If the church is no longer in existence, you might want to check with the regional headquarters for that denomination for the information.
The LDS Church has filmed the records of many denominations, and you can easily find which ones have been filmed by checking the Family History Library (FHL) catalog at the FamilySearch® site. I normally do a place search and include the location information in the spaces provided. For example, “Place: Jefferson; Part of: Ohio.” I then select “Ohio, Jefferson” and see that there are church histories and church records available for this area. By clicking on these links I can see exactly what records are available. The next step would be to make a printout or copy the titles, film numbers, and/or other pertinent information to take to my local Family History Center™ to check on availability and to order the films. (It should be noted here that not all materials in the catalog may be circulated to FHCs, and some may only be found in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, UT.)
For more information on using FamilySearch® and on using your local Family History Center™, see the following articles:
“Do I Still Need My FHC?” by Jake Gehring
(Ancestry Magazine, September/October 1999 Vol. 19, No. 5)
“The New LDS Web Site,” by Jake Gehring
(Ancestry Magazine, September/October 1999, Vol. 19, No. 5)
“Preparing for a Trip to the Family History Library,” by Juliana Smith
(Ancestry Daily News, 24 January 2000)
Donations
Anyone requesting information from any religious institution—church, archives, etc.—should keep in mind that the purpose of these institutions is not to find your ancestors for you. It is common courtesy to send some donation to defray the cost of any research, regardless of the size of the request. Typically, there is only one archivist, receptionist, priest, or whatever to do the work, and his or her priority must be to look after the day-to-day business matters that keep that institution open. For example, a record needed for someone who is living would be a lot more important than a record of someone who has been dead for fifty to two hundred years.
Also, the person doing the research typically has to search through old un-indexed records, sometimes in foreign languages and in barely legible handwriting. Because most diocese and other religious archives are given budgets that hardly let them survive, they have to depend on the donations to keep the doors open and to keep records in the first place. Because many of these originals records are not microfilmed or otherwise duplicated or preserved, just turning pages is causing some to deteriorate, and some record keepers are reluctant to handle them at all. Most of all, researchers must realize that because of the booming interest in family history research, archivists everywhere are often overwhelmed with requests. If we expect to have these institutions continue to help us, we need to be considerate of their needs and give a little back.
Online Help
As with other groups, there are a growing number of churches and denominations turning to the Internet and Web sites will normally contain contact information, as well as other gems. These sites can usually be found with a quick search. Below is one such example:
Old Swedes Church (Wilmington, DE, Constructed in 1698-99)
http://www.oldswedes.org/index.htm
This site has a wealth of information. It tells us that it has been patronized by communities of immigrants—“the Swedes at Fort Christina and the colony of New Sweden; the Dutch in the area centered at New Amstel (now New Castle DE);
the English in New Castle county of the colony of Pennsylvania; and finally Americans from many nations in the state of Delaware.” There is a history of the church in timeline format, and it also reveals that the churchyard has more than 15,000 burials. A virtual tour of the church and map to show visitors how to get there are included, and there is even a page devoted to genealogy requests. Jackpot!
Regional headquarters for denominations also frequently include information for family historians. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago is a good example of this. The “Guide to the Archdiocese” has a directory of parishes in the diocese and links to churches that are online, and the “Archdiocesan Archives” link takes you to the page for the Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Archives & Records Center, which contains a genealogical guide with a list of records available and an e-mail address for research requests.
You may also find records in national repositories. The American Jewish Archives also has a genealogy page with information about resources available to Jewish researchers at this facility.
Databases and More Information
Vital and church record databases at Ancestry.com
(Mostly paid subscriber databases)
Directories at Ancestry.com
(Mostly paid subscriber databases)
For more information, you can search the Ancestry.com Library for “church records” (without the quotes). There are currently 300 articles and tips on this subject.
From the E-Store
“U.S. Catholic Records: A Diocesan Research Guide,”
by Virginia Humling ($14.95)
New York Births & Baptisms: Southeast Region CD-ROM
(75,000 records from New York church registers of 1660-1916 for Dutchess, Greene, Putnam, Rockland, Ulster, and Westchester counties. This is today’s product special and is on sale for $22.95.)
Ancestry Daily News
