Church records are some of the most valuable genealogically significant records for tracing your ancestors in predominantly Christian-based countries. In order to understand and use these records, it is helpful to understand how and why these records were created. Parish registers are records created by small administrative geographic districts that typically have their own church building and an administrator who is sometimes designated a priest, pastor, or minister. A parish is usually part of a larger geographic area designated as a diocese. This organization is still strictly observed by the various Catholic churches around the world. Some Protestant churches have abandoned the traditional parish/diocese organization for a loose confederation of church congregations often referred to as a convention or other designation.
In Europe, Catholic churches started keeping records of individuals as early as the 1300s. Many of these records still exist and millions of these records have been digitized and are online. Other Catholic records are also available from other parts of the world especially in Spanish-speaking countries. On July 16, 1054, the Patriarch of Constantinople Michael Cerularius was excommunicated from the main body of the Catholic Church, starting what is called the “Great Schism” and thus creating the two largest denominations in Christianity—the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox faiths.
Church records only occasionally record the date of a person’s birth, where the churches baptize infants, the first and earliest record is usually that of baptism. Most churches record marriages, but some only record burials and not death dates or other information. The details included in entries in various church records often depended more on the official recording the information. However, the Catholic Church very early established specific wording for recording each type of record. Records are usually kept chronologically and in some instances, there may be an annual index or list of the records.
Whether or not detailed records of the Catholic and Protestant churches exist depends heavily on local conditions and preservation efforts. As an example, the earliest parish records, usually called registers, in England were first created starting in 1538 when Henry VIII established the Church of England. In contrast, the earliest birth and christening records in Denmark begin in 1484. However, it is important to understand that the earliest records depend on the actions of the individual parishes and some parishes did not start keeping records until much later.
One of the initial challenges in utilizing church records for genealogical research involves identifying the church affiliation of your ancestors and relatives. The next challenge is identifying the actual congregation where the records may have been created and maintained. In predominantly Catholic countries, this process involved identifying the specific location where the events in your ancestors’ or relatives’ occurred. This is one of the core activities of doing genealogical research. Without a firmly established location, it is unlikely that you will find any of the existing records and it is also very likely that you will end up investigating unrelated people.
Some churches, such as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, have centralized, regularly maintained records by wards and stakes based on geographic areas albeit with a geographic organization that only roughly correspond to parishes and diocese. The wards and stakes are organized on a strictly geographic bases but more than one ward or congregation may share the same church building. The Church has been keeping records since the mid-1800s however access to the records is usually restricted to church members.
While other Protestant denominations, if they have maintained historical records often keep what is recorded on a very local basis, occasionally gathering records into larger repositories. For example, the FamilySearch.org Research Wiki has an article on the Baptist Church in the United States that outlines where and how these particular records can be found. Whether or not the records of an individual congregation have been preserved in a central location depends on the affiliation of the church with a larger association of congregations. Many Protestant church congregations are only loosely affiliated geographically and so identifying the actual church where your ancestors and relatives attended services may be difficult.
In Europe and elsewhere, there are still some countries that have a specific “state church.” In addition, some countries, including many in Central and South America, have a recognized church, usually the Catholic Church, but no official state church. Where there is a predominant religious affiliation, finding the records depends entirely on adequately identifying the location of events in your ancestors’ or relatives’ lives.
Beginning in the early 1800s, many countries around the world began a system of civil registration to record births, marriages, deaths, and in some instances burials. These are valuable records that can be a supplement to church records from the same locations.
One way of identifying your ancestors’ or relatives’ church affiliation is to locate events on Google maps and search for churches around the same location. If you know the denomination of their affiliation, you can often identify possible locations for records from the churches that are closest to the events. This is particularly helpful for identifying parishes and diocese. But it is also important to understand that people may have traveled some distance from their homes to attend their particular church.
The large, online, genealogy-based websites have billions of church records. If you haven’t explored these records, you a missing a major component of your genealogical heritage.
