User:Hanna5974/sandbox/australia church

The Value of Church Records in Australia Family History

 * Church records are a valuable source for proving the dates and places of births, marriages, and deaths and the identity and relationships of family members.
 * They are particularly important prior to the start of each stategovernmentkeeping birth, marriage, and death certificates.

Prepare by Collecting Background Information
You will possibly find many different people with the same name as your ancestor, especially when a family stayed in a locality for several generations, and several children were named after the grandparents or aunts and uncles. Be prepared to find the correct church records by gathering in advance as many of these exact details about the ancestor as possible:
 * name, including middle name and maiden name
 * names of all spouses, including middle and maiden name
 * exact or closely estimated dates of birth, marriage, and death
 * names and approximate birthdates of children
 * all known places of residence
 * occupations
 * military service details

Carefully evaluate the church records you find to make sure you have really found records for your ancestor and not just a "near match". If one or more of the details do not line up, be careful about accepting the entry as your ancestor. There are guiding principles for deciding how to resolve discrepancies between records that are seemingly close. For more instruction in evaluating evidence, read the Wiki article, Evaluate the Evidence.

Where Did Your Ancestors Worship?
The United States is a country of diverse denominations. Knowing the denomination of your ancestor is an important part of church records research. Start by learning how to search a variety of records for clues to the denomination, locality, and possibly even the specific names of churches where your ancestors worshipped. Follow the tips in the Wiki article, Determining the Church Your Ancestor Attended.

Basic Strategies for Finding Church Records

 * For a thorough list of strategies, go to the Wiki article, How to Find Church Records in the United States. Learn the many different sources to locate church records with helpful links for each source.
 * Then come back to this page to choose an article on searching for records of a particular denomination and an article for records available for the state where your ancestors resided.

Searching for Church Records by U.S. State
m For information about records for non-Christian religions in Australia, go to the Religious Records page.

Historical Background

 * The Anglican Church of Australia, formerly known as the Church of England in Australia, is a Christian church in Australia and an autonomous church of the Anglican Communion.
 * Australian society was predominantly Anglo-Celtic, with 40% of the population being Anglican. It remained the largest Christian denomination until the 1986 census.
 * When the First Fleet was sent to New South Wales in 1787, Richard Johnson of the Church of England was licensed as chaplain to the fleet and the settlement.
 * In early Colonial times, the Church of England clergy worked closely with the governors. Richard Johnson, a chaplain, was charged by the governor, Arthur Phillip, with improving "public morality" in the colony, but he was also heavily involved in health and education.
 * Authorities were suspicious of Roman Catholicism for the first three decades of settlement and Roman Catholic convicts were compelled to attend Church of England services and their children and orphans were raised by the authorities as Anglicans.
 * The Church Act of 1836 established legal equality for Anglicans, Roman Catholics and Presbyterians and was later extended to Methodists.
 * The Australian Constitution of 1901 provided for freedom of religion.

Online Resources and Websites
Lutheran Archives 27 Fourth Street Bowden SA 5007 Australia E-mail: lutheran.archives@lca.org.au Telephone: 08 8340 4009
 * Lutheran Archives
 * Genealogy and Family Research: The parish registers contain information on births, baptisms, confirmations, marriages, deaths and burials of people who were associated with the Lutheran Church. These are extremely valuable for family history research. To assist researchers a Church Records Computer Database Index has been prepared. A printout of the surname provides the researcher with an index to entries with that surname in the parish registers. This enables the researcher to quickly locate those records which may be useful. There is an additional charge for this service.
 * Computer printout of surnames in church records database: $5 per surname searched, plus $1 per page
 * Transcription of church register records: $6 per record (e.g. baptism record)

Historical Background

 * The first Lutherans to come to Australia in any significant number were the immigrants from Prussia, who arrived in 1838 with Pastor August Kavel. This period in Prussia was marked by a persecution of "Old Lutherans" who refused to join the Prussian Union under King Frederick Wilhelm.
 * In 1841, a second wave of Prussian immigrants started, with the arrival of Pastor Gotthard Fritzsche. He settled with the migrants in his group in Lobethal and Bethanien (now Bethany) in South Australia. The Lutheran church of this period is referred to as the Kavel-Fritzsche Synod.
 * A split occurred within the South Australian Lutheran community in 1846, and two separate synods were established. The followers of Kavel founded the Langmeil-Light Pass Synod, and those of Fritzsche the Bethany-Lobethal Synod.
 * These two groups came eventually to be named the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Australia, which derived from the Bethany-Lobethal Synod, and the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Australia which was of the Langmeil-Light Pass Synod, and a number of other synods that had developed. These two denominations joined to form the Lutheran Church of Australia in 1966.
 * A significant influx occurred after World War II and migration also brought a number of Lutherans from other European countries.
 * As of 2009, the church had 320 parishes, 540 congregations and 70,000 baptised members in Australia and 1,130 baptized members in New Zealand.

Information Recorded in Church Records
The information recorded in church or parish registers varies somewhat from religion to religion, and later records generally give more complete information than earlier ones. Most church registers for the Anglican, Catholic, and Presbyterian denominations provide the following information:

Baptisms

 * Birth and baptism dates
 * Place of baptism
 * Christian name of the child
 * Christian and surname of the father
 * Christian name of the mother (some include maiden surname)
 * Parents’ abode
 * Occupation of the father
 * Name of the officiating minister

Children were generally baptized within a few days of birth. If a child died soon after birth, death information was sometimes added as a note.

Marriages

 * Date and place of marriage
 * Full names of the bride and groom
 * Parish of residence of the bride and groom
 * Marital status of the bride and groom prior to this marriage
 * Married by banns or license
 * In the case of a minor, whether with consent of parents
 * Name of the officiating minister
 * Signatures or marks of the bride and groom
 * Signatures or marks of witnesses

Marriage registers may also include other information about the bride and groom such as their ages, occupations, and names of parents. In cases of second and later marriages for a woman, they may include her former married names along with her maiden name.

Marriage registers sometimes include the published banns. These were announcements of intent to marry which were made for two or three Sundays prior to the marriage, and gave an opportunity for anyone to come forward who knew of any reason why the couple should not be married.

Burials

 * Dates of death and burial
 * Place of burial
 * Name of the deceased
 * Place of abode at time of death
 * Age of the deceased
 * Occupation of the deceased
 * Name of the officiating minister

Occasionally parents' names, cause of death, and even the date and place of birth are given for the deceased. Burials were recorded in the records of the church where the person was buried. The burial usually took place within a few days of death. Burial records exist for individuals for whom no birth or marriage record exists. In addition, stillbirths may have been recorded in a burial register when no baptism occurred.