How To Use Church Records When Researching Your Family History
The Church is one of the oldest organized institutions in Western civilization. Before Reformation in Europe, the clergy, who studied religious works, were the only people who could read and write. As such, the duty to keep state records fell to them, as kings were eager to have accurate records of the citizenry so that no one could escape paying taxes!
The result of this has been records kept by religious organizations for almost a thousand years. If you are thinking this seems too good to be true, you're right. In many cases their accuracy is in question, and in Europe, where the church and the state acted as one body, corruption undoubtedly tainted records at times. Also, natural disasters and warfare have destroyed innumerable records. Imagine how many records were lost in Europe because of the World War II bombing raids! In America, where the church has always been forced away from state affairs, meticulous record-keeping was not seen as a duty of the clergy.
Even though church records were lost, many exist today. Some contain information that cannot be found anywhere else, and some contain facts that corroborate information in other records. These church records can help, in particular, locate birth, marriage, and death information. They do vary among denominations: Quaker, Dutch reformed, Anglican, Catholic, and other European churches traditionally maintained logs of births, marriages, and deaths; Baptist, United Brethren, and other America-born religions recorded little more than membership rosters.
To use church records effectively, remember two trends in American religious history. First, when Europeans initially came to this continent and formed colonies, they distrusted the church entering their affairs so much that religious wedding ceremonies were outlawed. Weddings were considered civil affairs, and as a result, civil magistrates performed them. Therefore, if you find mention of a wedding in a church record that dates back to the colonies, take a closer look.
The record is probably not of a wedding but of a marriage ban, or an intention to marry, and there is no guarantee that such a marriage ever took place. If you assume that such a ban was fulfilled, you might start researching the wrong family by mistake if the two never actually married. A second fact to be aware of is that religious groups in America actively campaigned for new members. As a result, people often converted from one faith to another. When a person converted, their name was often dropped from church records.
How do find what faith your family members were? A good start is to know their European homeland. If they were German or Dutch, chances are they were either Dutch Reformed, Lutheran, or Catholic. If they were from Italy or certain parts of Ireland, they were Catholic. And if they were from Scotland or Ireland, they were probably Presbyterian. Knowing this, you can compare that with the colony in which they settled.
