Rising Toward Heaven:
Church Members and Their Records
by Trevia Wooster Beverly1
Any serious research into the life of an ancestor should include a thorough analysis of the sociological and historical aspects of that ancestor’s religious group. This is important because the customs and practices of the religious group had a tremendous influence on the behavior of the individual and his or her family. Our colonial American historians were among the first to concentrate on the evolution of the community with the family unit, and this included the part that local churches played. Sumner Chilton Powell used church and town records for an innovative examination of how Puritan settlers adapted English town patterns in their establishment of Sudbury, Massachusetts, in the 1640s.2 In early rural settlements and in urban immigrant communities, the local church was frequently the leading, if not the only, regular meeting place.
For groups of people tied to specific religious beliefs, the 325 USA Dewey categories of colonization, immigration and migration (and the same topics in various states) should be noted. From 1714 to 1720, some 54 vessels brought the "Scotch-Irish" Presbyterians to Boston, and great numbers are to be found in Massachusetts and New York. An example of specific references is the work of David A. Haury.3
Rarely will family research be limited to a single church or denomination. To find the records of individuals, the obvious key is to find the church or synagogue that is still active where the records are held by the minister, priest or rabbi in charge. Minutes of the church will usually be with the church secretary, and early church records will often be held in the church’s library or archive, if these exist. A primary resource for still-active individual churches and denominational offices, as well as libraries and other repositories, is the local Yellow Pages listing. Compiled listings for broader areas may be found in such compilations as the one prepared by the late Rev. Donald J. Hébert for southwest Louisiana,4 in which are covered not only Catholic churches but Protestant and Jewish as well. Hébert gives, by civil parish, the names of the churches (or synagogues), their addresses, the types of records they hold, and the dates for which records exist.
Petty Pease Smith’s AASLH Directory of Historical Agencies,5 while out-of-date, will also help the researcher find an organization dedicated to the denomination’s history. This directory will be found in the reference section at Clayton and at almost every other library. If the denomination no longer exists, as is the case with the Shakers (United Society of Believers), check with the major historical society libraries in the region of interest. The National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections6 lists many such holdings, indexing them by denomination.
In the 1930s, the WPA covered thousands of individual church records under the Historical Records Survey, but only a portion of the inventories was published. Whatever was published should be found in the major libraries, and one of them should have that state’s unpublished inventories on deposit. At Clayton, check The WPA Historical Records Survey7 and Check List of Historical Records Survey Publications: Bibliography of Research Project Reports.8
The researcher will first want to check the state in which the church operated, if known. There are a variety of published histories and records. Check the finding aids notebooks at Clayton to see what may be on both microfilm and microfiche. Also check city directories9 for the location of interest, for both the known church and for the denominational listings of churches not known by name. Researchers familiar with church records of baptisms (or christenings), marriages, and funerals will sometimes overlook other records. For example, if the church was connected to a cemetery, there may be records of that activity that are separate from the funeral records.
Bishop William Meade’s Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia10 is not only one of Virginia’s "must check" resources, it is also vital in searching for church records. While including many personal reminiscences of the Episcopal Church in Virginia, Meade’s work recovered many old vestry books, or parts thereof, that were supposed lost. Supplementing Meade is Fischer’s Albion’s Seed,11 which includes a large section on "Religious Denominations and Sects" that discusses not only the more common religious denominations such as Baptist and Presbyterian but also groups such as Cameronian, Fifth Monarchist, Muggletonian, and Ranter.12 Another section, "Religious ways,"
delves into the differences in social practices among the various religious denominations, providing valuable insights into such things as naming practices, marriage customs, and the manner in which deaths and burials were handled.Near Frankfort, Kentucky, is the famous Forks of Elkhorn Church. In her history of this church,13 Ermina Jett Darnell has also given the history of settlement and migration of its people. The earliest minute book of the church begins in 1788. Grassy Spring Church, Province Baptist Church, Harmony and Midway Presbyterian Churches, Shiloh Methodist Church, and others have their origins in the Forks of Elkhorn. Before the Revolution, the Baptists back in Virginia had been bitterly persecuted by the Church of England, so much so that the congregation of Upper Spotsylvania decided to remove to Kentucky in September 1781. By 1828 the congregation had not only "white" and "colored" members but seventeen Indians from the nearby Choctaw Academy. This type of history may be found many times over by the researcher who seeks it.
Throughout Clayton’s collection, one can find a wide selection of histories of specific churches, many of which discuss individual members of the congregation and contain abstracts of specific church records. Two excellent examples of church histories, both of which contain names of early members, are Cedar Bayou Methodist Church Sesquicentennial History, 1844-199414 and Early Catholic Church Records [of Alabama] 1874-1900,15 the latter of which includes records of the members of Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ (Cullman), St. Boniface’s Church (Hanceville), and St. Joseph’s Church (Warrior). Another example is The Records of Holy Trinity (Old Swedes) Church of Wilmington, Delaware, for 1697-1773, published by the Historical Society of Delaware in 1890.16
There are also a number of other items for the researcher’s use. A good example is Baptist Clergy Census Directory, 1840-1849 and 1850-1852 (GEN 286 B222 USA), which is a compilation of information extracted from 500 source volumes. It gives the names of Baptist clergymen together with their association, state, and county. It also contains citations to the various source volumes.
County histories should always be accessed because they will usually include some mention of the county’s churches and cemeteries and brief family histories and other historical items. For Texas, such county histories were published in abundance during our Sesquicentennial in 1986.
Special collections should also be consulted. One example is the Shane Manuscripts,17 which cover a number of church records related to individual members.
When researching churches or any other subject, it is important to survey all of the available material at the library, since the information you seek may be in several different areas. Look in the general USA section, the reference section, and the appropriate state section. Also check the finding aids, the vertical file, the family histories section in the Clayton home, and, if appropriate, the foreign section. Pay careful attention to the library’s finding aids. Many of the "state" finding aid binders will list microfilm related to churches or church records.
Compiled church records do not exist for all states, but some, like Louisiana and Virginia, have substantial resources in this area. Louisiana examples include the late Rev. Donald J. Hébert’s church (and county) record abstracts, published in his 40-volume Southwest Louisiana Records and 12-volume South Louisiana Records.18 The Catholic Church is well along in publishing abstracts of two major collections of church records: Diocese of Baton Rouge Catholic Church Records (currently at 17 volumes)19 and Archdiocese of New Orleans Sacramental Records (currently at 14).20 These major collections are supplemented by the works of De Ville, Forsyth, Mills, and others.
The foreign section contains many compilations of church records. In the Irish section, for example, researchers will find such books as Clergy of Derry and Raphoe,21 which gives parish histories and biographical and succession lists. In the German section, there is German Church Books, Beyond the Basics,22 which, gives guidance in reading German script, or "churchbook German." This is an important tool with which to become familiar before approaching church records written in this German script.
Church and related records are often the most overlooked, probably because researchers do not always think of the major impact religion and religious practices had on the individual and the community. By identifying the denomination and then the specific church, much important information can be added to the family history.
Notes:
1. The author descends from a New England Congregationalist minister on her paternal side, and her mother’s ancestry is Acadian (Catholic). She and her husband, Murphy (early Virginia Episcopal Church), are members of Houston’s First Baptist Church, where, among other things, she teaches genealogy classes.
2. Puritan Village: The Formation of a New England Town (Middleton Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1963). CEN S974.44P
3. David A. Haury, Index to Mennonite Immigrants on United States Passenger Lists, 1872-1904 (North Newton Kans.: Mennonite Library and Archives, 1986). GEN 325.24 H375 USA
4. Donald J. Hébert, A Guide to Church Records in Louisiana 1720-1975 (Eunice La.: Rev. Donald J. Hébert, 1975) GEN 976.3 H446 LA
5. Petty Pease Smith, AASLH Directory of Historical Agencies, 13th Edition (Nashville: American Association for State and Local History, 1986).
6. See Karen Stein Daniel, "The National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections: An Untapped Source," The CLF Newsletter, vol. 10, no. 3 (August 1996), pp. 6-7.
7. The WPA Historical Reocrds Survey: A Guide to the Unpublished Inventories, Indexes, and Transcripts (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 1980). 973 H461 USA
8. Sargent B. Child and Dorothy P. Holmes, Check List of Historical Records Survey Publications: Bibliography of Research Project Reports (reprint; Baltimore: Clearfield Co., 1989). 016.973 C536 USA
9. Trevia Wooster Beverly, "Do You Have an ‘Urban’ Ancestor? Check out that City Directory!," The CLF Newsletter, vol. 13, no. 1 (February 1999), pp. 6-9.
10. Originally published in 1857 without an index. The 2-volume reprint edition (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1966) includes Jennings Cropper Wise’s Digested Index and Genealogical Guide... (c1910), which indexes 6,900 proper names found in Meade’s work. 975.5 M481 VA
11. David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). This book is available at HPL Central. 973 F529
12. Radical sects seemed to have proliferated during the seventeenth century, driven by a common impulse to reject other ordinances and become "seekers."
13. Ermina Jett Darnell, Forks of Elkhorn Church: With Genealogies of Early Members (1946; reprinted with additions and corrections, [Baltimore]: Clearfield Co., 1995). GEN 976.9 D223 KY
14. Cedar Bayou Methodist Church Sesquicentennial History, 1844-1994 (Baytown, Tex.: The Committee, 1996). Shelved in the Texas section under Harris County. GEN 976.4141 C389
15. Hermenia Voss Basch, Early Catholic Church Records 1874-1900 ([Cullman Ala.?], 1990). GEN B298 ALA
16. Shelved in the Delaware section under New Castle County. GEN 975.1 B968 NEW C DEL
17. Trevia Wooster Beverly, "We dined on ‘steak and whiskey’: An overview of the Shane Manuscripts," The CLF Newsletter, vol. 11, no. 3 (August 1997), pp. 3-5.
18. Both series will be found in the Louisiana section. GEN 976.3 H446 LA
19. Baton Rouge: Diocese of Baton Rouge, Department of Archives, 1978-.
20. New Orleans: Archdiocese of New Orleans, 1987-.
21. Belfast: Diocesan Council of Derry and Raphoe, 1999. GEN C629 GR BRT Ireland
22 Kenneth L. Smith (Camden Maine: Picton Press, 1989). Shelved in the German section. GEN 943 S653