New York City, Lutheran Church Records, 1834-1854

A challenge to researchers of Germanic genealogy is tracing immigrant ancestors to their European birthplace. This database is an index of church records from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saint Matthew in New York City that provide the German birthplace of church members. Many of the entries are for marriages in the church, but a few are for baptisms or burials. Each record provides the name of the individual, birthplace, and type of original record where their name appears. It contains the names of over 17,000 people. For those seeking birthplace information for German immigrants to New York City, this can be an illuminating collection.

One of the greatest challenges in Germanic genealogy is tracing an immigrant ancestors to his European birth place. Many records simply list "Germany" as the place of origin. In the former German Empire civil and church records are the primary sources of genealogical information. These records are kept on a town or parish level. Thus knowing an ancestor's exact town of origin is essential to find earlier generation.

Parish registers kept in the United States are often an excellent source for the needed birth information. The records of the Evangelical Lutheran church of Saint Matthew in New York City, New York, are a prime example. In the vast majority of cases, European towns of origin are listed with the marriage records for both bride and groom as well as the death records. The baptismal records of many children name the birthplaces of their parents.

This congregation grew out of a merger between Trinity Lutheran Church and Christ Lutheran Church, which took place in 1784 in Manhattan. Each congregation had both English and German speaking members. The English-speaking segment formed Saint Matthew's Lutheran Church in 1820. When Christ Church was sold in 1831, both the English and German congregations started meeting at Saint Matthew's. Beginning in 1840, this church was used exclusively by the German group and later became known as the United German Lutheran Churches. This name was used until 1925. Currently the congregation is known as the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saint Matthew.

Indexing the records of Saint Matthew's is an on-going project. Thus far this index includes over 8000 names taken from the marriage records dating from 1835 to 1854. In each case both bride and groom are listed, as well as their date of marriage and places of origin. In isolated cases, witnesses are also indexed if their German place of origin is given. This project aims to eventually include marriages through 1905 and burials to 1925.

The data was extracted from available microfilm copies at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. The original source is listed as:

United German Lutheran Churches (New York, New York)

Church records, 1785-1925.

Films used so far: FHL film # 1901796 (1834-1845), FHL film # 1902068 (1845-1854)