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The Ancestor Hunt regularly adds and updates new collection links, as well as searches for and fixes broken links.
(This page's most recent update is December 2024)
Another underutilized genealogy resource is Church Records. We tend to focus our research on civil records, but need to be aware that often church records pre-dated civil records and are a great resource as well. In the BMD Records section of this website, there are about 15,000 collections of civil records that are available online. Yes, that’s a lot, but we need to also search church records as well.
What can we find in church or synagogue records? Here’s just a shortlist of what nuggets we can find:
- Baptisms and Christenings
- Marriages
- Deaths
- Burials
- Confirmations
- Membership lists
- Church Minutes
- Church Directories
- Transfer Letters
- Bar or Bat Mitzvahs
- Sunday School lists
- Church newsletters
I recently found a mention of one of my ancestor’s date and location of death in a church newsletter in Berlin, Germany. What a find!
In addition, many folks also documented important events in family bibles, so they need to be searched as well if the event information has been digitized.
Here are a couple of articles that you might find useful:
- U.S. Church Records Research Guide
- United States Church Records
- A Genealogist’s Guide to Using Catholic Records in Genealogy Research
There is a large number of Free Online Church Record collections; the links accessible by state below:
- Free Alabama Online Church Records
- Free Alaska Online Church Records
- Free Arizona Online Church Records
- Free Arkansas Online Church Records
- Free California Online Church Records
- Free Colorado Online Church Records
- Free Connecticut Online Church Records
- Free Delaware Online Church Records
- Free District of Columbia Online Church Records
- Free Florida Online Church Records
- Free Georgia Online Church Records
- Free Hawaii Online Church Records
- Free Idaho Online Church Records
- Free Illinois Online Church Records
- Free Indiana Online Church Records
- Free Iowa Online Church Records
- Free Kansas Online Church Records
- Free Kentucky Online Church Records
- Free Louisiana Online Church Records
- Free Maine Online Church Records
- Free Maryland Online Church Records
- Free Massachusetts Online Church Records
- Free Michigan Online Church Records
- Free Minnesota Online Church Records
- Free Mississippi Online Church Records
- Free Missouri Online Church Records
- Free Montana Online Church Records
- Free Nebraska Online Church Records
- Free Nevada Online Church Records
- Free New Hampshire Online Church Records
- Free New Jersey Online Church Records
- Free New Mexico Online Church Records
- Free New York Online Church Records
- Free North Carolina Online Church Records
- Free North Dakota Online Church Records
- Free Ohio Online Church Records
- Free Oklahoma Online Church Records
- Free Oregon Online Church Records
- Free Pennsylvania Online Church Records
- Free Rhode Island Online Church Records
- Free South Carolina Online Church Records
- Free South Dakota Online Church Records
- Free Tennessee Online Church Records
- Free Texas Online Church Records
- Free Utah Online Church Records
- Free Vermont Online Church Records
- Free Virginia Online Church Records
- Free Washington Online Church Records
- Free West Virginia Online Church Records
- Free Wisconsin Online Church Records
- Free Wyoming Online Church Records
Good Luck and Happy Hunting!