Many old church records were kept in a private home. Many were kept at the parish level. Some were disposed of by disinterested family or none family, that may have settled an estate. Some were filed at the state level of the particular denomination. I am speaking here only from personal experience as my church historian for the United Methodist Church of Bloomsbury, Hunterdon County. Some are on file at Drew University. But not ALL by any means. So I hope you who are trying to search out Methodists will find this helpful. I just wish we had not lost our burial records as well as that of many others. With the changing of pastors it's entirely possible that some were held at the parsonage and got packed up and moved as the pastors moved too. ;( All bad luck for us who are so interested in all this information. Perhaps others of Protestant denominations can also fill us in on how the others operated. Don't forget there were also traveling pastors who actually had no parish long before the churches were even built. Some of them have been documented and some have not. In the very early records denomination, as long as staying within the same group (Protestants) vs. Roman Catholic it really didn't make a lot of difference who they used. As long as it was their group and in the area at the time. Linda Huff Muessig ----- Original Message ----- From: "SHAWN DEMPSEY" <shawnpdempsey@msn.com> To: <njessex@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2007 8:24 PM Subject: [NJESSEX] Church Records - What Can Be Found > Yesterday I attended my monthly meeting of the Parker Genealogical Society > of Colorado (PGS). I am also their webmaster. > > The guest speak, Valerie Eichler, spoke about Church Records, what can be > found and what types of records may be available. I jotted down some notes > and thought I would share it with you all. > > The following is not a complete list but something to think about when > looking for church records. Not all churches will have all of these > records. > But you may want to make inquiries of the churches you are researching to > see just what they do have. > > 1. Looking for Birth, marriage, death records check the following sources > for church references: > Certificates are filed at various levels of government. And if missing in > one location may be available in another. > a. State Certificates > b. County Certificates > c. Church Certificates > > 2. Removal & Arrival Records > Churches kept records of people leaving and arriving to and from their > church. Some records may only record names. Other records may record where > they came from, or went to, various events in a person's life, who they > were > related to, etc. > a. Removal Records - record people leaving a church community > b. Arrval Records - record people coming into a church community > > 3. Communion Records > > 4. Confirmation Records > > 5. List of Communicants - a listing of members who received communion (can > be recorded weekly, monthly, annually). This is considered a good > substitute > for census records especially the missing 1890 Census. > > 6. Membership Lists - lists of members of a church. Could contain just a > list of names. Or more information like dates of events, addresses, > relatives, etc. > > 7. Minutes - notes on meetings, events, records all information about a > group and what is happening in the community. > a. Protestant churches - usually call their minutes "Vestry" > b. Lutheran churches - usually call their minutes "Sessions" > c. Baptist churches - usually call their minutes "Meeting Records" > > 8. Church Denomination Archive > Each church denomination has it's own archive - the keeper(s) of church > records. If a church doesn't exist any more try to locate the Archive that > might contain it's records. Some churches will regularly submit their > records to its archive to ensure they survive. > > Hope this gives you all some new directions for looking at church records. > > > Shawn Dempsey > Essex County Email List Moderator, > NJGenWeb County Coordinator, Essex County NJ > http://www.rootsweb.com/~njessex > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > NJESSEX-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message