Church Record Sunday: Wright State University (Ohio)

Have Dayton, Ohio ancestors? Check out the church records available from Wright State University. The earliest records they hold date back to the 18th century.

Some of the churches represented are: First Regular Baptist Church, First Lutheran, Fairborn United Methodist, First Unitarian, Central Baptist, Westminster Presbyterian, Corinth Presbyterian, Salem Lutheran, St. James Episcopal, Westminster United Presbyterian, St.. Jacobs Evangelical Lutheran,  Crosby United Methodist, Greene Street United Methodist, First Baptist, Society of Friends, St. Andrews Episcopal, United Society of Believers, First Presbyterian, St. John's United Church of Christ, and Farmersville Reformed.

Church Record Sunday: Sacramento Catholic Church Records and the State Library

While it would seem that a state library would be the place for materials pertaining to the government of a particular state. They can also be places to find church records. For past Church Record Sundays, I have previously shown other examples of church records that are housed in a state library. Today's edition of Church Record Sunday is the California State Library. One set of church records found there are Catholic Church records from Sacramento as well as the nearby towns of Folsom and Auburn.

This microfilm collection is found on the catalog here. The full catalog records states that the 21 microfilm reels contain: Reel 1: Baptisms, vol. I (1850-1855), vol. II (1856-1866), vol. III (1865-1890) -- Reel 2: Baptisms, vol. IV (April 1890-June 1908) -- Reel 3: Baptisms, vol. V (June 28, 1908-December 18, 1921) -- Reel 4: Baptisms, vol. 6 (January 15, 1922-December 30, 1933), vol. 7 (January 7, 1934-May 20, 1939) -- Reel 5: Baptisms, vol. 8 (May 20, 1939-February 21, 1943), vol. 9 (February 28, 1943-July 29, 1944) -- Reel 6: Baptisms, vol. 10 (August 8, 1944-February 20, 1949), vol. 11 (February 20, 1949-November 23, 1952) -- Reel 7: Baptisms, vol. 12 (November 23, 1952-October 30, 1955), vol. 13 (October 30, 1955-September 15, 1958) -- Reel 8: Baptisms, vol. 14 (September 19, 1958-January 3, 1965), vol. 15 (January 10, 1965-September 17, 1983) -- Reel 9: Confirmation register (1892-1894, 1907 and May 1918-July 1934) -- Reel 10: Confirmation records (1935-1958) -- Reel 11: First Communion records, small grey index book (1943-1962, 1961-May 1983) -- Reel 12: Marriage records (1856-1858) -- Reel 13: Marriage records (1865-1908) -- Reel 14: Marriage records (1908-1929) -- Reel 15: Marriage records (1929-1948) -- Reel 16: Marriage records (1948-1981) -- Reel 17: Interment records (1910-1958) -- Reel 18: Interment records (1958-1998) -- Reel 19: Baptism records from Folsom & Auburn (1859-1861, vol. II (1860-1866) -- Reel 20: Japanese records, Baptismal records (1932-1945), Marriage records (1942-1945), includes some camp entries -- Reel 21: St. Stephen's Slavonian Church 3rd and "O" Streets Baptisms, marriages & interments (1921-1928).

Church Record Sunday: Archives.com Partnership with the Evangelical Lutheran Church

Archives.com Partners With the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to Publish Millions of Church Records

First Time a Comprehensive Historical Database of Lutheran Congregants Will Be Available Online

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., April 17, 2012 - Archives.com, a website that makes family history research simple and affordable, is pleased to announce its partnership with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) to digitize and index 1,000 reels of microfilm containing millions of baptism, confirmation, marriage, and funeral records. Archives.com will make these records available online for the first time as part of its ongoing effort to expand its collection of over 2.1 billion historical records.

With the help of digitization and indexing partners, Archives.com will create digital indexes of these records. The documents cover Lutheran congregations throughout the U.S., and will be accompanied by images of the original parish register ledger books. Dating from 1793-1940, these new collections will help users uncover valuable information about their ancestors that isn't available anywhere else online.

Joel Thoreson, Archivist for Management and Reference Services at the Evangelical Lutheran Church Archives notes, "We're very excited to work with Archives.com in digitizing and indexing these records. Researchers have long sought the ability to do easy searches for individuals across multiple congregations. Currently, without knowing the exact congregation at which ancestors worshipped, finding those individuals is a slow and painstaking process."

Archives.com estimates that digital indexes and images resulting from the 1,000 microfilm reels will be available online later this year. Nearly all of the records were handwritten in Norwegian, German, Danish, and Slovakian, in addition to English, making this an especially unique and valuable record set.

Archives.com Senior Director of Product Joe Godfrey said, "Church records are rich with genealogical information, and we're excited to be partnering with the ELCA to make their impressive collection available online for the first time. Access to these records will allow our users with ties to the Lutheran church to discover more about their ancestors than ever before."

Archives.com makes over 2.1 billion records available to its users, including a comprehensive U.S. census collection and is continually adding new content. Please visit the Collections page to learn about the records available on Archives.com, and to receive regular updates about the website please visit the Archives.com blog.

About Archives.com

Archives.com is a leading family history website that makes discovering family history simple and affordable. The company has assembled more than 2.1 billion historical records all in a single location, and makes them available at a price that’s up to 80 percent less than the leading competitor. Archives also partners with other leading family history websites to provide a comprehensive resource for researching your family history. Archives.com is free to try for seven days, allowing anyone to explore the benefits of membership without risk or obligation. For more information and to start discovering your family history, please visit http://www.archives.com/.

About the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Archives

The Archives of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America preserves and maintains the records of predecessor church bodies, inter-Lutheran organizations, as well as records of leaders, congregations, and synods of the church. Located outside of Chicago, the ELCA Archives hold genealogically rich collections of oral histories, microfilm, photographs, as well as other archival materials and exhibits. To learn more please visit http://www.elca.org/archives.

Church Record Sunday: Society of Friends Calgary

As I have shown in previous Church Record Sundays, church records are not always located in churches. The following link is for Society of Friends records at the Special Collections at the University of Calgary. 

Make sure to search the special collections catalog of the university library in the area your ancestor lived in for possible church records.

Church Record Sunday: Easter Book and Parish Rolls

It seems fitting today to look at a church record that is named after Easter. For those with UK ancestors, you may want to check out Easter books or sometimes called Easter Rolls. This tithe was collected on Easter from the mid 16th century to 1836 (Wright).

The following are some resources that describe this tithe. You can also look at the Family History Library Catalog for microfilmed copies of these rolls.

Websites

A Guide to Easter Books and Related Parish Listings by S. J. Wright

Easter Books and Church Warden Accounts on Early Modern Paleography

Early Modern Chester 1550-1762 on British History Online


Books

Chapman, Colin R. Pre-1841 Censuses & Population Listings in the British Isles. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Pub. Co, 1998.

Happy Easter 2012

From the collection of Gena Philibert-Ortega