Mississippi Church Records

Before 1900 the largest religious groups in Mississippi were the Baptist and the Methodist Episcopal (now United Methodist) churches. The Family History Library has a few original church records for Mississippi, including some Baptist and Presbyterian documents. However, the records of these major denominations seldom include birth, marriage, and death dates.

Some denominations have collected their records into central repositories. You can write to the following addresses to learn where their records are located:

Baptist
Mississippi Baptist Historical Commission Mississippi College Library P.O. Box 51 Clinton, MS 39060 Telephone: 601-925-3434 Fax: 601-925-3435 Internet: http://www.mc.edu/campus/library/libhistory.htm

The Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives 901 Commerce Street #400 Nashville, TN 37203-3630 Telephone 615-244-0344 Fax 615-782-4821 Internet: http://www.sbhla.org/links.htm

Histories of the Baptists include:

Benjamin, Griffin. History of the Primitive Baptists of Mississippi. 1853. Reprint, Jonesboro, Arkansas: Sammons Printing, 1958. (Family History Library book 976.2 K2g.)

Schilling, T.C. Abstract History of the Mississippi Baptist Association, 1806-1906. New Orlean, Louisiana: N.p., 1908. (Family History Library film 1036195.)

Methodist
J.B. Cain Archives of Mississippi Methodism Millsaps-Wilson Library Millsaps College 1701 North State Street Jackson, MS 39210 Telephone: 601-974-1073 Fax: 601-974-1082 Internet: http://library.millsaps.edu/index.php/archives/jb-cain-archives-of-mississippi-methodism/

Commission on Archives and History of the United Methodist Church 36 Madison Avenue P.O. Box 127 Madison, NJ 07940 Telephone: 201-408-3590 Fax: 201-408-3909 Internet: http://www.gcah.org/Directory/CommAH.htm

A helpful history is J. Allen Lindsey, Methodism in the Mississippi Conference (Jackson, Mississippi: Hawkins Foundation, Mississippi Conference Historical Society, 1964; FHL book 976.2 K2L.)