{"id":85,"date":"2007-08-10T10:57:02","date_gmt":"2007-08-10T17:57:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/2007\/08\/10\/why-church-records-are-important-for-hard-to-find-ancestors\/"},"modified":"2007-08-10T10:57:02","modified_gmt":"2007-08-10T17:57:02","slug":"why-church-records-are-important-for-hard-to-find-ancestors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/2007\/08\/10\/why-church-records-are-important-for-hard-to-find-ancestors\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Church Records Are Important for Hard-to-Find Ancestors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Church records can be one of the most important sources you search for hard-to-find ancestors.\u00a0 Let me describe What I know about them–<\/p>\n

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  1. Church records provide births, marriages, and deaths<\/strong> on a fairly consistent basis.\u00a0 Some churches do better in one or more categories than others.\u00a0 The creation of these records depends upon whether the civil government has ascribed by law that the church record the vital records like Virginia and Maryland.\u00a0 Or upon the theology of the denomination like the Baptist faith which does not baptize infants.<\/li>\n
  2. Church records identify parents’ names<\/strong> and prove family relationship<\/strong>s by recording witnesses, godparents, and sponsors.\u00a0 I recommend that you read carefully a little book written by John T. Humphrey”s Understanding and Using Baptismal Records,<\/em><\/strong> Available from the author, PO Box 15190, Washington DC 20003.\u00a0 He has personally read and transcribed (translating into English) over 100,000 baptismal records for Pennsylvania.\u00a0 And for the first time, written a full chapter on the sponsors and how often they are related to the child and the child’s family.\u00a0 Very significant little volume<\/li>\n
  3. Church records describe migrations<\/strong> and state places of origin<\/strong> for both individuals and groups.\u00a0 Admissions to the congregation, dismissals from the congregation to another congregation, biographical sketches, memorials, funeral sermons are part of the storehouse of evidence.\u00a0 Please continue into these records, don’t just search the vital events.<\/li>\n
  4. Special populations<\/strong> are picked up better in church records than in any other record category–Quakers whose marriages are discussed in both the men’s minutes and the women’s minutes and everyone attending the marriage signs the certificate!\u00a0 Huguenots\u00a0 who\u00a0 blend into the\u00a0 predominant religion\u00a0 or\u00a0 the congregation\u00a0 with the most important people in the community–protecting their own congregation from outsiders, yet being buried in the cemeteries nearby regardless of denomination.\u00a0\u00a0 Native Americans, who were Christianized early, recording their Indian name and their new Christian name\u00a0 in the same\u00a0 book.\u00a0\u00a0 Amish who avoid civil affiliations in any way they can, yet consider their own congregation\u00a0 as sovereign.\u00a0 Roman Catholics in the British Isles who were proscribed by law–they could not vote or hold public office, they paid double and triple taxes, they could not travel more than 6 miles in any direction or have more than 6 adults in their home at any one time, their children could not inherit–they\u00a0 were penalized\u00a0 for their religion until 1829!<\/li>\n
  5. Biographical databases<\/strong> are now available for church leaders, ministers, members including itinerant preachers and missionaries both domestic and foreign.\u00a0 Many of these databases are now available on the internet.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Your hard-to-find ancestors\u00a0 can be located within the church records of their places of worship.\u00a0 Your favorite genealogist, Arlene Eakle<\/p>\n

    PS\u00a0 Stay tuned, I have collected a list of some databases you may not have discovered yet.\u00a0 That will be our topic another time.<\/p>\n

    PPS\u00a0 The British Isles Family History Society Seminar is sold out.\u00a0 And I have two very new publications and others that I have revized and reprinted just for this event.\u00a0 In another Genealogy News Sheet<\/em><\/strong> I will list these with their prices, so you don’t miss out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Church records can be one of the most important sources you search for hard-to-find ancestors.\u00a0 Let me describe What I know about them– Church records provide births, marriages, and deaths on a fairly consistent basis.\u00a0 Some churches do better in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}