Canada, United Church Archives (National Institute)

The United Church of Canada was formed in 1925 from the union of the Methodist Church of Canada and most of the Presbyterian churches in the country. Previously the Congregational and United Brethren in Christ churches had joined with the Methodists and in 1968 the Evangelical United Brethren joined the United Church, so there are many denominations represented in their history.

There are various regional conferences, which hold their own archives. To see a list of the nine conferences and descriptions of the eight which have archives, go to the site of the United Church of Canada Archives Directory. The central archives are the:

United Church of Canada Archives 3250 Bloor St. West, Suite 300 Toronto, Ontario M8X 2Y4 Telephone: (416) 231-7680 ext. 3123

These archives hold most of the various Ontario conference collections. A listing of holdings by location is available at the website; it can be confusing to use because you must know the placename of the circuit involved, if rural; occasionally the listing has inaccuracies regarding geographical names also.

The Alberta conference archives have published an inventory, A Guide to the Archives of the United Church of Canada, Alberta and Northwest Conference, by Lorraine Mychajlunow and Keith Stotyn (1991). The Montreal-Ottawa conference has published two volumes of holdings: Guide to the Local Church Records, Montreal and Ottawa Conference, United Church of Canada, by Susan Stanley (1986) and List of Registers of Births, Marriages, and Deaths of the Quebec-Sherbrooke Presbytery of The United Church of Canada, by Sylvie Côté (1994). The Manitoba conference has published Prairie Spirit: Perspectives on the Heritage of The United Church of Canada in the West, edited by Dennis Butcher et al (1985), which includes “Guide to the United Church Archives, Conference of Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario,” by Catherine Macdonald, pages 333-342. There is no published holdings list for the British Columbia conference. The other conferences do not have published inventories at the present time.

A record of service: a guide to holdings of the Central Archives of the United Church of Canada, project coordinator Ruth Dyck Wilson (1992, also available on 7 microfiche) concerns non-BMD records, but may be of use to more advanced researchers.

There were many kinds of Methodists in Canada in the nineteenth century. You can determine which sect your family belonged to by consulting the census, where individual kinds of Methodists were distinguished from one another. Once you know which kind, you can see if there was a church of that sect in your ancestor’s town.

The United Church policy now is that registers must be deposited at the conference archives, and church archivists aggressively pursue items which have been given to other archives or are in private hands. It should therefore be possible to find what records exist and then to access them through these public (i.e., church) facilities. It has also had some controversy regarding negative attitudes to making its registers available through the Family History Library.

Finding an individual church may be simpler by using the Find a Church online service on the United Church of Canada website.

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