Facts on Local Church Records

Early Connecticut settlers established the Congregational church as the tax-supported state church until 1818 when the state constitution was accepted abolishing the connection between church and state. Sometimes, if one parish was getting too large, a second was formed that became a precursor to a new town with the permission of the general assembly. Other denominations followed eventually, particularly the Baptists and Episcopalians from Rhode Island on the eastern border with Connecticut. Information in Connecticut's church records has often been found to be more informative, complete, or accurate than the town vital records.

Many town churches have deposited their older records for safe keeping with the Connecticut State Library. A List of Church Records in the Connecticut State Library is available at the cost of a photocopy, which updates the library holdings.

Approximately one-quarter of those records housed at the Connecticut State Library has been indexed in a format similar to that of the Barbour and Hale collections with individual index slips and bound compilations of individual churches. This Church Record Index File is state-wide, goes beyond 1850, but does not include all church records. Even in a town with more than one Congregational church, generally only the first is included in this index. Notably, many church records in incorporated cities have not been indexed.
Many town churches have deposited their older records for safe keeping with the Connecticut State Library.
In addition to vital records, indications of migration in listings of past and future church membership are often found when dates of admission or dismissal are given in membership lists for churches.

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Facts on Local Cemetery Records

   Centralization is the norm for Connecticut's cemetery records. The Connecticut State Library holds the Hale Collection containing over one million gravestone inscriptions. The project to collect these began in 1916 by Charles R. Hale but was continued by act of the General Assembly and the WPA through the 1930s. While clearly many stones had been lost or destroyed by that time, over 2,000 cemeteries were located state-wide and included in the collection. Each town's inscriptions are bound in separate volumes, but an alphabetical index across towns is available. Both have been microfilmed and are available through the FHL.

Cemeteries might have been church, family, town, or private ones. Only twentieth-century death records have place of burial indicated, but most administrators operating cemeteries in the state have records of their own, and many historical societies in the state have collections of town cemeteries not included in the Hale Collection. As with other states, the DAR chapter produces annual volumes of Bible, cemetery, and family records, which are deposited at the Connecticut State Library and the DAR Library in Washington, D.C.
Town clerks usually keep "Burial Books," generally beginning in the late nineteenth century, which indicate place of burial in that town for those who died outside of town.

   Cemetery records and gravestone inscriptions are a rich source of information for family historians. Cemetery and other sources of information associated with death include:

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