New York, New York City, Saint Peter's Lutheran Church Records - FamilySearch Historical Records

Collection Time Period
The collection covers the years 1862 to 1955.

Record Description
The records are images of births and christenings, deaths and funerals, and marriages.

Church records in the United States began in the early 1600s. They can be found in the churches, church archives, or university archives. They normally records of christenings, marriages, and deaths.

Citation for This Collection
The following citation refers to the original source of the data and images published on FamilySearch.org Historical Records. It may include the author, custodian, publisher, and archive for the original records.

Information about creating source citations for FamilySearch Historical Collections is listed in the wiki article Help:How to Create Source Citations For FamilySearch Historical Collections.

Digital images of originals housed at various municipal archives throughout New York.

Record Content
Genealogical information in a baptism record may include:




 * Full name of person being baptized
 * Child's gender
 * Baptism date
 * Birth date
 * Name of father
 * Place of baptism
 * Name of mother

Genealogical information in a death, burial, or funeral record may include:




 * Name of deceased
 * Death and burial date
 * Death and burial place
 * Birth date
 * Birth place
 * Age
 * Residence
 * Occupation
 * Cause of death
 * Name of spouse, parents, or children
 * Residence of spouse, parents, or children

Genealogical information in a marriage record may include:




 * Name of bride and groom
 * Age of bride and groom
 * Residence of bride and groom
 * Date of marriage
 * Dates marriage was announced
 * Place of announcement
 * Birth date
 * Previous marriage date and place (if any)
 * Divorce date and place (if any)
 * Names of parents
 * Residence of parents
 * Names of witnesses
 * Residence of witnesses

How to Use the Record
To begin your search you will need to know the following information:


 * The ancestor’s name
 * The approximate date of the event, such as the christening or baptism

Once you have located your ancestor in a church record compare the information in the record to what you already know about your ancestors to determine if this is the correct person. You may need to compare the information of more than one person to make this determination.

Carefully evaluate each piece of information in the record. These pieces of information may give you new biographical details that can lead you to other records about your ancestors.

The following suggestions may be helpful to you:


 * Use christening and birth records of christenings (baptisms) to identify a person’s birth date and place. These are an excellent substitute for civil birth records.
 * Use confirmation records to identify a person’s birth date and place and his or her age. If only the age is given, use it to calculate the person’s death date.
 * Use death, burial, or funeral records to identify a person’s birth date and place. Use age at the time of death or burial to calculate the person’s birth date. These are an excellent substitute for civil death records.
 * Use marriage records to identify a couple and the marriage date and place and to begin compiling a family group. These are an excellent substitute for civil marriage records.
 * Use church records in general to identify other family members who may have served as witnesses to an event.
 * Use the date of the event along with the locality to find the family in census records and land records.
 * Use the residence and names of the parents to locate church and land records.
 * Extract the information on all children with the same parents. If the surname is unusual, you may want to compile entries for every person of the same surname and sort them into families based on the names of the parents. Continue to search the birth records to identify siblings, parents, and other relatives in the same or other generations who were born in the same county or nearby.

If you do not find your ancestor, try these suggestions:


 * Look for variant spellings of the names.
 * Check the records of other congregations in the area or nearby communities.
 * Check the records of other religous sects in the area or nearby communities.

Be aware of the following:


 * An infant’s christening usually took place within a few days or few weeks of the birth, depending on the religion. Some churches, such as the Baptists, baptized only adults not infants. Members of other sects blessed their infants when they were a few weeks or a few months old.
 * Many religions tested the church knowledge of those that had been baptized as infants and then confirmed them a member of that religion. Frequently, a person’s age at confirmation was between 14 and 20.
 * Church records are considered a primary source. They are usually reliable because they are kept by the minister, or a clerk appointed by the minister, who usually recorded an event at or very near the time it occurred.
 * There is also some variation in the information given from record to record.

Why the Record Was Created
Churches kept records to determin who were members of their sect and to track the vital events in their member's lives.

Record Reliability
Church records are considered a primary source. They are usually reliable because they are kept by the priest or a clerk appointed by the priest, who usually recorded an event at or very near the time it occurred.

Related Websites

 * Saint Peter's Church
 * New York Lutheran Church Records and Histories

Related Wiki Articles

 * New York
 * New York Church Records
 * New York City, New York
 * New York History

Citing FamilySearch Historical Collections
When you copy information from a record, you should list where you found the information. This will help you or others to find the record again. It is also good to keep track of records where you did not find information, including the names of the people you looked for in the records.

Citation Example for a Record Found in This Collection
"New York, New York City, Saint Peter's Lutheran Church Records, 1862-1955" digital images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org: accessed 16 September 2011). William George Jantzer and Louise Wesley, 5 October 1892; citing Church Records, Marriages, 1871-1896, Book 2B, image 1; Saint Peter's Luthern Church, New York, New York, United States.

A suggested format for keeping track of records that you have searched is found in the wiki article Help:How to Cite FamilySearch Collections.