Don't Forget Church Records

By TCGS Member, Connie Estep

Church records may be able to fill in our research blanks, especially since governments did not always require recordings of births, marriages, and deaths. Richard Kyle, Librarian and Resource Specialist for the Yakima Valley Genealogical Library, discussed on-line access to church records.

Church records vary by denomination and may include births, marriages, deaths, christenings, baptisms, and confirmations.  Sometimes they will have newsletters that could provide a more personal glimpse. Kyle recommended FamilySearch Wiki as a starting place. For U.S. church records go to familysearch.org/wiki/en/United_States_Church_Records. The Wiki is searchable by country and denominations. (In case you haven’t used it much, the Wiki has a treasure trove of genealogy help, from basic concepts to very specific details. It is well worth the time to get to know this site.) For many years the Catholic Church allowed the LDS Church access for copying records. They no longer allow this. Google is also a good place to search for church records.

Kyle also recommended cyndislist.com that many of us are familiar with, plus two I never heard. Gengophers.com he said has a faster interface than FamilySearch. The other one, MooseRoots.com, he also said was very fast. These are both free sites; MooseRoots requires registration and log-in. Both sites offer a paid subscription to avoid pop-up surveys.

Kyle also discussed searching U.S. Census records not yet indexed or for family members not showing up in indexes. Since the censuses are handwritten lists they can be hard to decipher. These lists were made by the census takers (enumerators); each enumerator had a district. To search the handwritten lists you need to know not only the city the person lived in but also the address or the general neighborhood to find the right enumeration district.

Both the National Archives federal census website (archives.gov/research/census) and the FamilySearch Wiki provide specific information (finding aids) to help your census research. I played around a bit with both archives.gov and the FS Wiki and found the Wiki was recently upgraded. If you have problems with the Wiki, try the federal site.

To record information from the hand written lists, Kyle recommended downloading census research forms and hand writing the information to make it easier to refer to. With each census the list of questions was usually changed somewhat.

Kyle also discussed resources of the Yakima Valley Genealogical Library (available for our free use).  Go to yvgs.net for more details. Fifty-one people attended this meeting.