Church records can offer a wealth of genealogical material about your ancestors. Most denominations kept some type of record of their members. Some included baptism, marriage and death information as well. Some records in Europe go back to the early 1500s. It is important to determine what records exist and where they can be found.
Many church records have been microfilm by the LDS church as part of their records extraction program. These records are now available on microfilm from the Family History Library or on the FamilySearch website. Still others are kept at regional church archives or through other record services such as Ancestry.com. It is important to first determine where your ancestor lived and what church or denomination they may have belonged to. Searching local records can then be done to look for your target family.
If records are not kept at the local level, you should determine if a historical library or archive maintains these records. As an example, many Society of Friends (Quaker) records are found in the Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy or at the Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College. For more information, visit www.joelongbooks.com.
