Congregational Yearbooks
One of the library's most frequently used reference resources is a succession of denominational yearbooks dating back to 1854. They contain lists of active ministers, necrologies (obituaries) of recently deceased ministers, church statistics, and the denominations' annual reports. This resource is particularly useful to churches preparing for an anniversary, genealogists, and authors researching church histories.
Listed below are links to digitized copies of those yearbooks from its inception through the present (except those published by the UCC) on the Internet Archive. Some are also available through Google Book Search. In those cases, we have included links to both.
Congregational Yearbooks
Yearbook of the American Congregational Union (1854)
American Congregational Year-Book (1855-1859)
Congregational Quarterly (1859-1878)
Congregational Year-Book (1879-1928)
Yearbook of the Congregational and Christian Churches (1929-1939)
Yearbook of the Congregational Christian Churches (1940-1960)
Please note that the yearbooks for 1854-1914a are dated to reflect the years of their publication but contain statistics for the previous calendar year, while 1914b-1960 contain statistics for the year indicated.
During the early 20th century, American Congregationalism experienced some fairly dramatic reorganization. When the National Council of Congregational Churches and the General Convention of the Christian Church merged in 1929, their respective annual publications — the Congregational Year-Book and the Christian Annual — also merged to form the Yearbook of the Congregational and Christian Churches.
We have also digitized copies of the Christian annuals, and a chart detailing the titles' evolution.
Over the next two decades, groups within the General Council then separated to form the Conservative Congregational Christian Convention in 1948, the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches in 1955, and the remainder eventually merged with the E&R to create the United Church of Christ in 1957.
Each new organization publishes its own yearbooks. The CCCC and NACCC have generously allowed us to make past issues of their respective annual publications available online.
