How to Find Your Family History in U.s. Church Records: A Genealogist's Guide

Sunny Morton and Harold Henderson have hit a gold vein in genealogy research! Their research taps the records of major Christian denominations before 1900. Besides excellent guidance for searching church records in general, including web links, they provide in depth insight for the following denominations: Anglican/Episcopal, Baptist, Congregational, Dutch Reformed, German Churches, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Lutheran, Mennonite and Amish, Quaker, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic. It's especially impressive to see the list of experts they have checked with in the production of this breakthrough genealogy tool. Many thanks to them for this exceptional work. Hopefully they capture feedback from readers to expand their work in future editions.

I purchased a copy of this for my mother, Diana Elder! We work together as professional genealogists, and when this came out, it was at the top of our lists. I also received a copy from the publisher, later on, to review. I read the book a little bit every day and learned many helpful tips.Chapter 1 is a comprehensive summary of what you might find in church records and their value to the genealogist.  Chapter 2 explains several methods for identifying your ancestor's church, which is an often overlooked step! Once we locate the church an ancestor may have belonged to, Chapter 3 helps us find and order the church records that they may be mentioned in. Chapter 4 has additional tips for working with old church records, and Chapter 5 includes records about church life.Chapters 6-17 include the following denominations: Anglican/Episcopal, Baptist, Congregational, Dutch Reformed/Reformed Church in America, German Churches: Reformed and Sectarian, Latter-day Saint (Mormon), Lutheran, Mennonite and Amish, Methodist, Quaker (Religious Society of Friends), Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic. Toward the end of the book, I kept thinking I was done! But then there was another chapter. It was enlightening to learn about all the different denominations and the groups that branched off from each of them. It highlighted the importance of learning about the evolution of each denomination over time.If you have ever been stymied by how to locate church records, this book will help. You will gain a fresh understanding of how church records were kept in the United States and how you can access them. It will save you time to understand the basics of each denomination before beginning to research for their records.

This seems to be the ONLY book on church research for genealogy/family history. It is good. I like the first 3 chapters that address "What's in Church Records, How to Identify Your Ancestor's Church, and How to Find and Order Church Records". That being said I disagree with some statements in the rest of the book. Perhaps I just have different experiences than the authors. For Baptists they say "records tend to be relatively few in number and sparse in genealogical context". In my Baptist church, this is TOTALLY wrong. We have over a file cabinet FULL of records that took at least 24 hours to digitize. Perhaps my church is the exception. So perhaps there are other generalizations in the book that are not correct. That's why 4 stars instead of 5. Highly recommend for your church research.

This book tells you how to read the church records of the different faiths. If you don't know what church your ancestor went to it tell you what to look for that might indicate what church they attended.

Information and links for finding church records and location. My husband's family is a mix of various religions. I hope to learn more about where to look for church records and learn about the people from any records found.

Lot of helpful information.

This was a gift to a researcher genealogist who was extremely thrilled to receive it. She said it was full of pertinent information. She was so thrilled, she sat there hugging the book!

I had hoped there would be more specific information about my ancestors.