Church and Cemetery Records (Genealogical Society of Utah Project): Wisconsin
circa 1830-circa 1989
See individual reel lists for each county
311 reels of positive microfilm (35mm and 16mm)
Wisconsin Historical Society
(Map)
Church and cemetery records from 32 Wisconsin counties, spanning nearly 150 years from the 1830s to the 1980s. The church records typically contain registers of baptisms, confirmations, marriages, funerals, church membership, and occasionally church constitutions, histories, and minutes. Cemetery records list burials and lot owners. Geographic emphasis is on the northwestern and southeastern areas of Wisconsin. A wide range of Christian denominations are included as well as one Jewish cemetery. The records were borrowed and filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah (GSU); the originals were then returned to their owners and are not in the possession of the Wisconsin Historical Society. Individual reel lists for each county are linked to this document. To retrieve all those lists, search “Genealogical Society of Utah Project” within the Collection Title on the drop down menu.
English
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-gsuchurch ↑ Bookmark this ↑
The Genealogical Society of Utah (GSU) and the Wisconsin Historical Society cooperated in a project to borrow and film Wisconsin church and cemetery records of interest to genealogists. The project produced 311 reels of microfilm containing records from 32 Wisconsin counties, dating from the 1830s to the 1980s. Positive copies of the microfilm are available at the Wisconsin Historical Society and the Area Research Centers; each location houses different portions of the collection.
The microfilm has been grouped according to county where the church or cemeteries are located and each county group has been assigned a unique call number. Due to the filming process, there is occasionally a record of a church or cemetery from a different county located on a reel of film predominantly of another county, but generally a reel of microfilm almost always contains only records of churches and cemeteries from one county. Each call number therefore represents records primarily of one county (call number “Milwaukee Micro 70” for Milwaukee county records for example). An exception is “Stout Micro 25” which contains records from both Dunn and Barron counties.
Accuracy of this finding aid is limited by readability of the film, completeness of the record, and staff knowledge of foreign languages and scripts. In-depth research into church history was not done by Archives staff. Some records do not name the church which created them; in those cases the information recorded by the filmer is used and often is the present custodian of the record. Missing information, particularly the “record type” in the reel lists, is due to the occasional necessity of working from camera operators' reports or other finding aids rather than from the film itself. Annotations and corrections can be forwarded to the Wisconsin Historical Society for inclusion in future versions of this finding aid.
A separate reel list finding aid is provided for each call number. The reel lists contain detailed information on types of records included and years covered. The reel lists also indicate the languages in which the records were written and the GSU film number, in the event that a duplicate needs to be ordered. The reel lists include brief descriptions of the record types (birth, baptism, marriage, etc.); this information was compiled from the film itself. Occasionally sections, especially languages and record types, were left blank when incomplete information was available.
Place Names
A few locations are not now governmental units but apparently were in use at the time the records were created. In cases where churches moved or merged, the record is still listed under only one location. Sometimes a single record contains information crossing county lines, especially in the case of missions or circuits. If exact location is not clear, rather than misled the user with a possibly incorrect place name, the more general location of just the county is used. Thus it is important for the user to be imaginative in searching for place names.
Church and Cemetery Names
Church names, if in a foreign language, are usually entered in the English form if doing so will bring all records for one church -- both before and after the church adopted English as its language. “Saint” is sometimes spelled out and sometimes abbreviated to “St.” making it necessary for the user to search both ways.
Denomination is listed as it appeared in the records with no additional research done on denominational changed that have occurred in the 150-year scope of this collection. Thus lines are not always exact between, for example, Methodist and Methodist Episcopal or Evangelical Lutheran and Lutheran. In some cases the present denomination is indicated for a church that has changed through the years. For example, United Church of Christ may indicate churches which were formerly Congregational or Evangelical and Reformed. Some knowledge of church history is useful to the user. A denomination could not be determined for some records.
