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
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Date: |
Site: |
Activity: |
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Wed., Mar. 27 |
Introduction; overview of types of research libraries |
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Sat., Mar. 30 |
Meet director Bill Fowler, church records at MHS, samples of documents, tour by Jennifer Tolpa, Peter Drummey. |
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Wed., Apr. 3 |
Comments & observations from MHS trip. Start thinking about research project. Overview of Second Congregational Church, and colonial gravestone studies |
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Sat., Apr. 6 |
Meet with John Suminsby, church historian, to view documents on display and available to researchers, followed by tour of colonial era gravestones behind church. |
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Wed., Apr. 10 |
Preparation for Saturday Visit. |
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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 |
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Sat. Apr. 27 |
Tour of archives and library, demonstration of documents and research methods by Frances O’Donnell, Curator of Manuscripts and Archives |
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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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