Since Colonial times, Americans have belonged to religious congregations across the country. Some churchgoers also attended Sunday schools, church socials, service auxiliaries and revivals; and sent their children to church-sponsored schools.
Such vigorous worship communities often produced vigorous records. Church records aren’t always easy to find or access, but online resources make this task easier. This guide will get you started.
TYPES OF CHURCH RECORDS
Church records can be brick-wall busters. Use them when searching for births, marriages, deaths and overseas origins; trying to connect relatives to parents, spouses and children; and struggling with sparse records.
Baptisms and marriages are the life events most commonly found, with the date of the event, witnesses or godparents, officiant, and (for children’s baptisms) names of parents. Deaths and/or burials were more likely recorded if the church had its own burial ground.
Some faith traditions created periodic roll calls of members or a master membership list with infrequent but valuable details like a spouse’s name or death date.
In the later 1800s, churches switched from handwritten records to preprinted registers. Details
