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PATH III: Church Records
As our focus this year
was on church records, we visited a number of local churches
and libraries, and the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Why
Church Records?
Every year, we choose a different focus for
PATH. In a way, the type of records we choose don't matter;
in other ways, it is very important.
When doing "primary research",
historians ask specific questions. Specific questions lead
to specific places which lead to one-of-a-kind documents.
This is why in PATH we focus on one type
of place at a time. For historians, there is not much use
in doing research in a general way. You wouldn't use an encyclopedia
for original research, for example. But a letter written from
a pastor to a parishioner might reveal something unique about
a church. It also might also help us to understand the world
in which the church existed, in the context of that time and
place. Eventually it may help to answer the larger questions
historians ask at the end of their research: what changes,
and what stays the same, over time? And why?
The investigation of church records is an
important aspect of many types of historical research, from
genealogy, to ethnic studies, to the writing of a specific
church's history. Churches often keep cemetery records, deeds,
personal papers, and photographs, (among many other types
of records), providing researchers with important puzzle pieces
to the stories they are writing.
Class
schedule
| Date: |
Site: |
Activity: |
| Wed., Mar. 27 |
Beverly Public Library |
Introduction; overview of types
of research libraries |
| Sat., Mar. 30 |
Massachusetts Historical
Society |
Meet director Bill Fowler, church
records at MHS, samples of documents, tour by Jennifer Tolpa,
Peter Drummey. |
| Wed., Apr. 3 |
Beverly Public Library |
Comments & observations from
MHS trip. Start thinking about research project. Overview
of Second Congregational Church, and colonial
gravestone studies |
|
Sat., Apr. 6 |
Second
Congregational Church, Beverly |
Meet with John Suminsby,
church historian, to view documents on display and available
to researchers, followed by tour of colonial era gravestones
behind church. |
|
Wed., Apr. 10 |
Beverly Public Library |
Preparation for Saturday
Visit. |
| Sat., Apr. 13 |
Union Baptist Church, Cambridge.
Museum of
Afro American History. Cobbs Hill Cemetery. |
Meet with Rev. Jeffrey Brown
at Union Baptist Church at 9:00 to discuss his research
using church records. Meet Bernadette Williams at the Museum
of Afro American History (site of the first black church
in America). Tour of Cobbs Hill Cemetery by Mr. Eastman. |
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A P R I L V A C A T I O N
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| Wed. Apr. 24 |
TBA |
TBA |
| Sat. Apr. 27 |
Andover-Harvard Theological Library Archives |
Tour of archives and library,
demonstration of documents and research methods by Frances
O'Donnell, Curator of Manuscripts and Archives |
Links
Congregational
Library and Archives
Methodist
Church Records in Massachusetts (New England Archives
Conference Commission on Archives and History)
Cyndi's
List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet: Religion and Churches
Beverly
public documents : from the incorporation of Beverly in 1668
to the present Contains minutes of public meetings and
related documents from 1668 to the present.
"Religion
in Eighteenth-Century America" Religion and the
Founding of the American Republic exhibit at the Library
of Congress
United States
Catholic Historical Society
Roman
Catholics and Immigration in Nineteenth-Century America
(Julie Byrne, Texas Christian University, National Humanities
Center)
African
American Religion in the Nineteenth Century (Laurie Maffly-Kipp,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, National Humanities
Center)
The
American Jewish Experience through the Nineteenth Century:
Immigration and Acculturation (Jonathan D. Sarna and Jonathan
Golden, Brandeis University, National Humanities Center)
The American
Jewish Historical Society
Church
Links: Denominational Archives
American
Religions to 1870: Website Visuals (American Historical
Association)
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