Some village have numerous church records, and for some villages, none have
been found. In recent years, hundreds of church records have been located and
returned to the archives although some have not been catalogued. Also sometimes
church records for 2 villages or more may be combined in one book and the smaller
village may not be identified.
Complete church records or registers were typically composed of; birth -
baptism register, wedding - marriage register, death - burial register
and confirmation register covering a time span. Sometimes there was also
a betrothal register, pre-marriage questionnaires and a list of congregation members.
Different types records were often contained in different books, say the baptisms
in one book and the deaths in another. Consequently what is found years later, may
only contain a portion of the church records. Perhaps baptisms covering a span of
10 years. So when some church records for a village have been found, it most
certainly would be for a limited time span and could contain just a few different
categories of records or all the records one would expect.
The church records are a particularly valuable genealogical record after 1857 since
few other records are available for that time period.
