Course: 2027-03
Using U.S. Religious Records for Family History
Virtual via Zoom
Faculty:
- Coordinator and Instructor: Sunny Jane Morton
- Other Instructors: Bonnie Wade Mucia, AG, AGL; Jeanette Sheliga; Deborah Abbott, PhD; Ellen Shindelman Kowitt; James Beidler; Judy G. Russell, JD, CG®, CGL®, FUGA; Kelly Connor Lear, CG®
Tuition:
• Regular Price: $615
• NGS Member Price: $575
Description:
When you face challenging genealogical problems for US ancestors, church records can be your saving grace! In this course, you will learn to find and use church records to identify elusive ancestors and immigrant birthplaces; reconstruct family groups; follow migration paths; bolster document trails in record-poor situations; and build meaningful historical context. You will learn a deeper appreciation of how your family fits into the country’s diverse denominational story.
You’ll learn to find, access, and interpret records of religious membership and rites. We’ll explore other congregation-level records (think minutes, auxiliary records, directories) and regional and denominational resources (think newspapers and clergy records). We’ll talk about archiving traditions and unique finding resources for different denominations.
In most sessions, the concepts apply to a variety of faith traditions. Methodist and Baptist examples are frequent but many others appear. Targeted sessions focus on Catholic, German-speaking, Southern, and Jewish records, but even these teach widely-applicable principles.
While learning to use church records, you’ll improve skills that can be applied in a variety of research settings. You’ll improve record-finding skills, even for the early frontier. You’ll deepen your ability to discover historical context. You’ll increase your appreciation of laws and local sources. You’ll discover resources for reading and translating old handwriting. In this online course, learners will have extra time to apply what they are learning in real time so they can ask questions and troubleshoot their church records questions.
Course Objectives
- Understand and appreciate the diverse religious history of the United States and how your family fits in its evolving religious landscape.
- Identify a family’s religious denomination and local church.
- Become familiar with various types of records created by and about churches.
- Locate and access extant records and contextual materials for specific churches.
- Gain skills that will aid in reading and translating church records as well as interpreting religious terminology.
Course Recommended Reading
How to Find Your Family History in U.S. Church Records by Sunny Morton and Harold Henderson
Recordings:
Sessions will be recorded and available through July 9, 2027
NOTE: All times are listed in Eastern Time.
Live Sessions may be subject to schedule adjustments by your course coordinator.
| Day | Session | Time | Session Title | Description | Instructor |
| M | 10:00 – 10:30 | Welcome and Orientation | Morton | ||
| M | 1 | 10:30-11:45 | Where Did My Family Go to Church? | Church affiliation–even within the same family–can be a moving target. We’ll do a flash history of the country’s changing religious landscape (within which your family’s religious loyalties may have changed). We’ll talk about why people changed churches; define some basic terminology (so you’ll know your Anabaptists from your Anglicans); and the little-known U.S. Census of Religious Bodies. Then we’ll sample the records. U.S. denominational records are something like a church potluck: you never know what you’re going to get. We’ll feast on a smorgasbord: vital records, pew rentals, jubilee histories, cookbooks, by-laws, bulletins, donation lists, minutes, photograph collections and more. Your syllabus includes a helpful “cheat sheet” of major religious denominations and which kinds of genealogically-significant records they typically kept. | Morton |
| M | 2 | 12:00-1:15 | What Kinds of Churches? What Kinds of Records? | Church affiliation–even within the same family–can be a moving target. We’ll do a flash history of the country’s changing religious landscape (within which your family’s religious loyalties may have changed). We’ll talk about why people changed churches; define some basic terminology (so you’ll know your Anabaptists from your Anglicans); and the little-known U.S. Census of Religious Bodies. Then we’ll sample the records. U.S. denominational records are something like a church potluck: you never know what you’re going to get. We’ll feast on a smorgasbord: vital records, pew rentals, jubilee histories, cookbooks, by-laws, bulletins, donation lists, minutes, photograph collections and more. Your syllabus includes a helpful “cheat sheet” of major religious denominations and which kinds of genealogically-significant records they typically kept. | Morton |
| M | 3 | 2:15-3:30 | How to Find All Those Church Records | We’ll cover general finding strategies for both manuscript and published records. You’ll learn what exactly you’re looking for when you Google (and see how Google Books searches differ). We’ll talk about contacting open churches and using denominational trees to follow where records may have gone. We’ll touch on denominational archives (we’ll dig more deeply in a later session), university special collections, and records at other repositories. We’ll also spotlight WPA church directories and inventories. You’ll get unique strategies for searching ArchiveGrid, FamilySearch, the Periodical Source Index, and WorldCat. Be ready for an online church record scavenger hunt! | Morton |
| M | 4 | 3:45-5:00 | Put What You’ve Learned into Practice: Virtual Group Research Session | A common downside of intense learning experiences is the inability to immediately put into practice what you are learning–and then it’s easy to forget things or lose momentum. During this virtual group research session, everyone will be online together, applying what they’ve learned in the first three sessions to their own families to identify a family’s religion or find extant records. Sunny will be there to answer questions and provide guidance. Students can chime in with ideas; listen to others receive guidance; celebrate and commiserate with one another; and build understanding of their own families that may help them further refine and target their personal learning goals throughout the rest of the week. | Morton |
| M | Extra | 5:00-5:30 | Optional Q&A Session and Review | Anticipating that there will be further questions after the virtual group learning session–and that some students may take additional time Monday evening to apply Day 1 learnings to their own research–this optional session continues the opportunity for more personal guidance. Bring your questions and listen to others’ questions. | Morton |
| T | 1 | 10:30-11:45 | Denominational Archives: A Sampling of Breadth and Genealogical Value | Each religious denomination created and preserved records in its own way. Their collections hold far more than parish registers: they can help answer complex genealogical questions while providing valuable historical context. By way of examples, this session explores the unique holdings of major denominational repositories, including the American Baptist Historical Society, Southern Baptist Historical Society, Congregational Library, the South Carolina United Methodist Collection, and Quaker archives. Rather than covering the basics of archival research, we’ll explore what makes each repository and its collections unique. Through research examples, we’ll examine the breadth of materials found in denominational archives. We’ll also explore online catalogs, digital collections, and practical strategies for planning a successful research trip, demonstrating how religious archives can provide evidence and historical context that often cannot be found in local church records or civil repositories. | Mucia |
| T | 2 | 12:00-1:15 | Clergy Connections: Tracking Ministers, Pastors and the Records They Left Behind | Whether a minister officiated at a family event or was your relative, tracking him down (it was almost always a “him”) can enrich your family history. We’ll set expectations for finding clergy records, because it’s not easy. You’ll learn different approaches for identifying clergy and their affiliations based on what you already know (by name, denomination, and location) and locating ministerial records and directories. See by example how to use these occupational resources to build a more complete picture of the person behind the collar–or of the people to whom he ministered. | Morton |
| T | 3 | 2:15-3:30 | Holy Headlines! Finding Church News in Newspapers | Denominational newspapers are all-too-easy to miss. Learn how these unique newspapers reveal insights on their members, from obituaries of the faithful to picnics and bazaars. Learn about unique resources for discovering what religious newspapers were in print for specific times and places. Learn how to find copies of newspapers online and offline. The syllabus includes a robust directory of denominational newspapers for major U.S. faiths. | Morton |
| T | 4 | 3:45-5:00 | Following Them Back to the Homeland in Church Records: Two Case Studies | Follow a Catholic family’s migration through many parishes and then across the pond–from Buffalo, NY to Bavaria–using records, collateral research strategies, and timelines. Discover resources for locality-based research that can help surface church records. Then see how church records help us follow an English convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) who migrated to Utah and reinvented himself in a new climate and culture. See how you can leverage resources for religious group migrations and the unique records created by specific denominations. | Morton and Sheliga |
| W | 1 | 10:30-11:45 | A Case Study in Southern Church Records | In the South, churches are often identified as “White” or “Black.” But before emancipation, many churches had both Black and White worshippers–and records reflect that reality. Those researching Black roots are often looking not only for their families but connections to enslavers that may appear on the rolls of White churches. And those researching White ancestors in the South will want to understand the nuances of integrated and segregated churches for both historical context and collateral research purposes. You’ll learn more about these principles in a fascinating case study of a congregation in the United Methodist Church–South. | Abbott |
| W | 2 | 12:00-1:15 | Catholic Records for Family History | Roman Catholicism is one of the largest faith traditions in the United States, crossing many ethnic and language boundaries. You’ll get a flash history of Catholicism in the United States. You’ll learn to find sacramental records and what’s in them and join a discussion on accessing these non-public records (results vary!). Learn about ethnic (or national) parishes and historical resources that may reveal the richness of Catholic parish community life. We’ll talk about finding diocesan archives and take a peek at the holdings of archives of religious orders. | Morton |
| W | 3 | 2:15-3:30 | Church Records of German-Speaking Immigrants | As one of the largest ethnic groups in the United States, German-speaking immigrants and their descendants produced a prolific body of records representing many denominations. This overview of people and paper trails will take you from the baptisms, marriages, burials and confirmations recorded by colonial German pastors in Pennsylvania to the records of diverse congregations that later flocked to the Midwest. You’ll come away with a new appreciation of the deep impact of the church lives of many immigrant families of all ethnicities and their descendants—and the kinds of records they may have left behind. | Beidler |
| W | 4 | 3:45-5:00 | Schools of Faith: From Sunday Schools to Colleges | Did your family members ever attend a school run by a church? Despite the enshrinement of separation of church and state, faith-based education (in part driven by the Protestant v. Catholic tension) has a deep history in the United States. Learn about religiously-supported primary and secondary schools; religious colleges and seminaries; and the powerful interdenominational Sunday School movement in which millions participated. See examples of extant records.
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Morton |
| Th | 1 | 10:30-11:45 | Introduction to Jewish Records in the United States | Those who desire a confident understanding of U.S. religious records need this session because Jewish congregational records are unlike those of Christian churches–except that they can be just as valuable for genealogists. Designed for those unfamiliar with Jewish research, this session includes a brief cultural context overview and an introduction to synagogue records and other major Jewish collections. You’ll be learning from the Director of JewishGen’s USA Research Division and a veteran in Jewish research both in the United States and abroad. | Shindelman Kowitt |
| Th | 2 | 12:00-1:15 | Case Studies in Frontier Faith and Early Religious Records | Finding church records during a locale’s settlement period can be challenging. Perhaps there wasn’t even a church in the area yet—or if there was, it is long gone and doesn’t seem to have left an obvious record trail. Understanding why records don’t exist is often the first step toward finding what does. Explore a framework for researching local religious and area history, uncover strategies for tracking down more obscure substitutes and context, and see it all in action through a case study about a mid-nineteenth-century West Virginia family whose marriage—if ever formally recorded at all—left no surviving evidence in a community where circuit riders and tent revivals were more common than churches themselves. | Lear |
| Th | 3 | 2:15-3:30 | The Laws of God: Church Law for Genealogists | Our ancestors didn’t just live by the laws of the place where they lived. They also lived by the laws of the church they belonged to, and sometimes the church laws as incorporated into the civil laws of the area. Understanding those laws and the interplay of church and state can often explain why people did what they did and what the records we find really mean. | Russell |
| Th | 4 | 3:45-5:00 | Reading, Translating and Understanding the Records You Find | The thrill of finding old manuscript records can be tempered by the frustration of trying to understand them. Review strategies for reading old handwriting. See how language translation aids can help you decipher church registers not written in English. Learn about guides that will help you understand religious terminology. | Morton and Sheliga |
| F | 1 | 10:30-11:45 | Writing My Church’s Story: Lessons Learned that Can Help Genealogists | Now let’s come at church records from a different perspective: that of a person gathering them up to tell her church’s story. Deborah shares lessons learned as part of the history committee for the Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio. Learn about the scattered records and resources she found in unexpected locations and see how the story of a church can be so much bigger than its membership records. | Abbott |
| F | 2 | 12:00-1:15 | Building Historical Context with Religious Communities | Whether or not membership records survive, if you know your family was associated with a specific church, its history can provide rich context for ancestors’ lives. In the past, many churches supported significant social experiences for their members, from camp meetings to committee meetings, auxiliary organizations to potlucks. Through examples, learn more about church communities and how to discover the history of a congregation. | Morton |