Early Church Records
The Solana family of St. Augustine, Florida is apparently the oldest documented
family in the United States insofar as church records are concerned. Vicente
Solana and Maria Viscente were married at the Cathedral of St. Augustine
on July 4, 1594, being the first ancestral couple of the Solana family to
live in that ancient city. The cathedral records also begin in the same
year. In an article entitled "St. Augustine, Nation's Oldest City,
Turns 400" there is a picture of the oldest surviving church register
in the country, for the Mission of Nombre de Dios (forerunner of the Cathedral),
consisting of baptisms, marriages, and burials.(1)
This family continues to have descendants living in St. Augustine over 400
years later.
The United States has never had a state religion as have many countries
of the world. Therefore, the circumstances of church records in the U.S.
is unusual, except in the former Spanish and French territories and provinces
of what is now the continental United States. Because both Spain and France
had a state religion — Catholicism — they were very concerned
about keeping records of church ordinances as they developed their empires
in the New World. The records from these missions in what is now California,
Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Texas, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi,
Alabama, Georgia, and Florida have extensive family history preserved.
It is for this reason that many Spanish, French, Native American and African
American pedigrees can be traced back as far as any other pedigrees in
the United States. Most of these records have been microfilmed and are
available in the more than 1,000 family history centers of The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) scattered throughout the
United States.
The earliest records for some of these colonies, however, were destroyed
in Native American uprisings. In fact, in Utah, where over 14,000 Native
Americans had been baptized by 1617, 34,000 by 1626, and 86,000 by 1630,
in forty-three small mountain missions — the locations for the majority
of which are now unknown — the knowledge has practically been lost
to history because the destruction was so complete as the Utes rose up,
killed many of the priests, razed the missions, and filled in all the
mines in which they were forced to work. A few mission bells, foundations,
and an occasional Jesuit archive have been located as proof of what has
been stated. Also, Dr. Donald Moorman (deceased), former professor at
Weber State College at Ogden, Utah, claims that some of these early records
were taken back into Mexico and that he saw them during his lifetime.
However, he does not leave in his files any notice of where they are located.(2)
Where colonies of European immigrants arrived in the United States, often
as religious groups, it is also possible to find some early records. Pilgrims,
Quakers, Dutch Reformed, Presbyterian, Methodist, Mennonite, and other
close-knit groups have many records that can be used back into the 1700s
in many cases, with a few being available into the 1600s. To find these
types of records, check with the Family History Library as well as libraries
and genealogical societies in the areas you are researching. By contrast,
when individuals arrived in the U.S. as single or nuclear families, not
attached to any religion, very often nothing exists about them in the
way of church records in the first and second generations, thereby creating
many roadblocks to tracing their ancestry back into Europe.
After the Civil War with the vast migrations north of many African Americans,
northern congregations were formed or expanded dramatically. A forthcoming
book edited by Eleanor Dooks Bardes and Mary H. Remler, and published
by the Hamilton County Chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society, entitled
Hamilton County Ohio, Burial Records, Volume 9, Union Baptist African
American Cemetery shows the extent to which some church record collections
can reach. This particular church has over 30,000 burial listings recorded
between it foundation in 1831 and 1970.
There are numerous other books in print containing the church records
of local congregations. Again, check the Family History Library and libraries
and genealogical societies in the areas you are researching. For example
Alfred Andrews in 1867 compiled Genealogy and Ecclesiastical History
of New Britain, Connecticut. Farmington, Connecticut, founded in 1645
had by 1707 grown to the point where the Great Swamp area was granted
permission to become its own ecclesiastical society and found a new church.
Every communicant member of the church from 1758 to 1867 is included in
this study. Thousands of such records exist and have been preserved throughout
the nation.
Types of Church Records
Church records include many varieties. There are the standard baptism, marriage
and burial records that most of us think of. In addition, you can often
find the following:
- Church census records, membership lists of arriving or new members,
departing members, members who have been cut off, excommunicated, or
censured.
- Minutes of various organizations within a church
- Records of church socials
- Biographical notes on members
- Transcriptions of talks or testimonies given in a particular meeting
- Notes on funeral ceremonies with references to the names of family
members who attended.
Naugatuck, Connecticut Congregational Church Records, 1781-1901,
published in 1987 by Helen S. Ullman is one example of a collection that
contains a variety of record types. It includes records of births, baptisms,
marriages, deaths, admissions, transfers of membership, disciplinary actions
and other matters of this congregation.
Also of note is the fact that some churches published their own newspapers
or magazines. For example, Barbara Manning has studied and compiled the
records of the German Reformed Church in twenty-two states and several
countries in Europe and Asia. Her two-volume work, Genealogical Abstracts
from Newspapers of the German Reformed Church, was published in 1992
and 1995 covers 1830-1839 and 1840-1843. This collection of information
from church newspapers gives details on marriages, deaths, parsons taking
up new posts, appointments complete with lists of references, reports
of accidents, murders, arrests, convictions, hangings, founding of scholarships,
acts of human kindness, rosters of people who gave to collections, lists
of those who attended schools or were elected to sit on church boards.
Finally, one little known fact that many genealogists overlook in their
search for their ancestry, is that foreign congregations, parishes, and
ecclesiastical communities of all types often refer in their records to
the migration or status of former members, or members who have immigrated
but still maintain their membership in local fraternities or societies.
One record from Spain seen by the author gave the location of a member
of the local parish then living in Mexico, stating who he had married,
and the names of several of his children. The records for this family
in Mexico do not exist because they have been destroyed, but continue
to exist in Spain. Limiting one's search to Mexican sources would never
have uncovered this information.
Despite the fact that there is no standard type of records and no state
religion in the United States, a wealth of information available from
U.S. church records. It is often in obscure locations such as the homes
of retired pastors, or their descendants, in local libraries or archives.
Nonetheless, every effort should be made to identify extant records for
the areas in which your ancestors lived or from whence they came in foreign
countries.
Footnotes
1. Conly, Robert. "St. Augustine, Nation's
Oldest City, Turns 400," National Geographic 129 (1966):201,
212.
2. Thompson, George A. Lost Treasures on the
Old Spanish Trail (Salt Lake City, Utah: Western Epics, 1988), pages
34-35.
|
