My Trails into the Past

Church records are always a nice resource to document events in a family’s life. Sacramental records such as baptisms, marriages, and funerals have always been a go-to resource for family genealogists. These supplement civil registration or even substitute for them when these events occur before the advent of civil registration. There are other records to be found in church records. Churches kept minutes of their meetings and an ancestor might be mentioned in them, especially if they were part of the governing group. Records of receiving communion or entry into the full church membership through confirmation are other records that often can be found. One of the best records found especially in Swedish-American churches are the membership records. My husband’s families were members of both the Swedish Lutheran and the Swedish Covenant churches. Both churches kept records of their memberships. From these records, you can learn when they joined the church and when they left, if they...