Home | Contact | Help | Search About | Presbyterian History | Catalog & Finding Aids | Exhibits | Publications | News | Support Services for: National Offices | Synods & Presbyteries | Congregations | Researchers | Family Historians

SERVICES FOR FAMILY HISTORIANS   Introduction   Minister and missionary bibliographies   Minister and missionary biographical sketches   Baptism, marriage, membership searches   Using microfilm via interlibrary loan   Web links   SITEMAP

Family History Research in the Presbyterian Historical Society PHS resources for family history research, with the exception of biographical sketches of ministers and missionaries, are found mostly in the records of individual congregations. There is no general index of individual or family names in Presbyterian records. If you do not know the name of the congregation to which your ancestors belonged, you should give the name of the nearest town as well as the state and approximate dates. In most cases we cannot help you if you give only the name of the county, township, or state without the name of a congregation, town, or city. Deposit of congregational records in the PHS is voluntary, and most congregations have not deposited their records with us. The PHS has no records of genealogical value from other countries. Because of our other duties for the church, our staff does not engage in genealogical research. We can tell you by postal mail, e-mail, or telephone whether or not we have records from a given church. If we have records that might be useful to you, you may visit us to search the records, you may obtain certain records on microfilm or we can refer you to an independent researcher who can search the records for a fee. Researchers are not connected with our staff, and set their own fees and policies. Records kept by individual Presbyterian churches normally include communicant (membership) registers (sometimes including dates of death), baptismal registers (including parentsÌ names and sometimes birth dates), registers of marriages, and registers of deaths. Many of the older church records do not include marriages and deaths. The oldest records here are from the 1700s, but records earlier than 1820 are rare. Records less than 50 years old are closed to the public except for individuals who need proof of their own birth date, baptismal record, etc.

	Home | About | Presbyterian History | Catalog & Finding Aids | Exhibits | Publications | News | Support | Contact | Help | Search Services for: National Offices | Synods & Presbyteries | Congregations | Researchers | Family Historians Copyright © 2000-2004 Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.); all rights reserved.