Searching Methodist Records for Family History

In tracing your ancestors, start with their religion. Families with a history of one particular affiliation can help you locate births, deaths and marriages.

If your ancestor was a full-time certified minister, particularly look to church conference records for appointments and obituaries. Official staff are listed in records, but members are usually just listed in the local church journals.

The Methodist Church has extensive records. Even if your ancestor was not on the staff, locating the church official performing the ceremony can help. Methodist journals record where the minister served during that time, furnishing the local connection to search.

Many Methodists were Quakers in colonial America. Microfilmed Quaker records are available at the Friends Historical Library at Swathmore College in Swathmore, PA. Narrowing down the geographical location of your colonial ancestor could help you determine their religion, as church groups tended to settle in certain areas. Note also that if a headstone is located in a church cemetery, the family was required to have affiliation with the church.

The Methodist Church was founded by John and Charles Wesley at the University of Oxford. Resources to search include the Methodist Archives and Research Centre in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, the United Methodists at http://www.umc.org/ of Southern Methodist University, Bridwell Library for Perkins School of Theology, SMU. Scotland Methodist baptisms for individuals are listed in the Wesleyan Register of Baptisms, which has a searchable database at http://www.fdca.org.uk/methodists.htm.

Methodist ancestors settling in the colonial South may have ties to the Southern conference. Records are available at the Pitts Theology Library at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. They have an extensive reference collection and can point the researcher in the right direction for other Methodist conference collections.