Source Information
About York County, Pennsylvania, U.S., Private Church Registers, 1738-1800
Pastor Jacob Goering, a Lutheran minister, served congregations in York County, Pennsylvania, and Hagerstown, Maryland. The records in this database and the baptisms performed in York County span the years 1788-1789 and include the names of over 516 individuals.
Reverend Thomas Barton, who served St. James Episcopal Congregation of Lancaster, Pennsylvania: Lancaster County performed some marriages in nearby York County. His marriage entries were transcribed from the originals by Charles W. Rutschky, Jr. in 1940. The records in this database span the years 1755-59 and include the names of over 195 individuals.
Reverend John Cuthbertson, a Reformed Presbyterian minister, served congregations in Adams, York, and Lancaster Counties. His diary of records was transcribed by S. Hellen Fields and printed originally in 1934. The records in this database span the years 1752-90 and include the names of 738 individuals who lived in York County.
Johann Caspar Stoever arrived in Philadelphia in 1728 and was the only Lutheran pastor in Pennsylvania from 1733 through 1742. He served Lutheran congregations throughout southeastern Pennsylvania and northern Virginia, including the Germanna colonists in Orange county. His registers were published by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in 1896. The records in this database include entries made for persons belonging to York County congregations and span the years 1730-79. The names of over 1,600 individuals appear in the 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 their 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 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 records in Pennsylvania rank among the very best.