Source Information

Lineages, Inc., comp. Lehigh and Berks Counties, Pennsylvania: Helffrich Pastoral Records [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2000.
Original data: Records transcribed from LDS Family History Library microfilm copies of church records for this locality. For more information, see the Family History Library Catalog (FHLC) for FHL #20356.

About Lehigh and Berks Counties, Pennsylvania: Helffrich Pastoral Records

The Reverends John Henry Helffrich and John Helffrich worked in Lehigh and Berks counties in Pennsylvania. This database contains records of their family genealogy, as well as baptisms, marriages, and burials for the region. For those researching this eastern Pennsylvania area, this will be a useful database.

Church records rank among the very best genealogical records available worldwide, but they are one of the most under-used sources in American genealogy. Until the advent of vital statistics in the United States—a very late development in most states—church records were the primary source of birth, marriage, and death information. The sheer number of denominations and affiliate churches has made identifying and locating each one's records a time-consuming ordeal for most genealogists. Church records vary a great deal in content and emphasis according to the basic theology of the religious group that created them.

Early immigrants from England, Scotland, and other European countries brought their religious beliefs, institutions, and customs with them, including the keeping of church books in which to record births, baptisms, confirmations, marriages, communion lists, deaths, and burials. Lutheran and Reformed Church records in Pennsylvania rank among the very best.