Colonial-Era Church Records

The Congregational tradition in America reaches all the way back to the Colonial era, the time of Puritans and Pilgrims.  In most cases, the only official records kept for a town in the 17th century were those of the churches.  They are valuable resources for historians and genealogists.  Some of those early records have been damaged or lost over the centuries, but many have survived.

In an effort to preserve early Congregational church records and make them available to the public, we have gathered original manuscripts from several early Congregational churches in Massachusetts. They have been both microfilmed and scanned, and the digital files are being hosted by our project partners at the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University.

We have started with the First Congregational Church in Natick, but more collections have already been digitized and will be posted in the coming months.

Many thanks to our partners in this endeavor:

• The Jonathan Edwards center
• Crowley Imaging Services
• Boston Photo Imaging
• Northeast Document Conservation Center