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Church Records
Home » Genealogy » Sources for Genealogy Research - Official Records » Church RecordsPosted by Your Guide on July 6, 2006 9:48 PM
Many people all over the country are church members, even if they do not attend their church regularly. This was true many years ago as well. Not only were people hampered by the need to work every possible minute to survive in a new frontier, but they often had to travel great distances by wagon or on horseback in order to attend services.
But when a church was nearby, many people joined the church both for reasons of faith and for social companionship with people who shared some of the same values as the other parishioners. Churches were the social gathering place in many communities and membership records were kept to show who was in good standing and who was not.
It was not an uncommon practice for unfaithful members to be denied membership for a time only to be readmitted later, once they had mended their ways. Other times people would ask to be granted membership, but would be denied. Records of those proceedings were often kept in what was called the "Church Minutes."
When searching for ancestors in a certain location, both church membership records, baptismal records, and the church minutes can offer an abundance of information about those people who lived in a small community.
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