Preparing for SLIG 2020: Part 3

Having determined that I need to expand my base knowledge of religion in early America in order to get the most of my SLIG 2020 class, "Early US Church Records", I started exploring what resources might be available to me.

When I followed this approach for my Advanced DNA class last summer, I was very successful in finding a number of resources. There were many videos, books, blogs, and tools available.  You can see my blogging on that topic here. (Click on the links within the blog to see the earlier postings with links.) While the topic of "Early American Religion" seems very broad, there were far fewer resources that were obviously available. It's quite possible my search terms are lacking but I don't see many videos, blogs or tools. I am able to find a large number of books.

A listing of the books available in the
"Religion in American Life" series.

Archive.org has books online which, even though still under copyright, can be checked out for free. You do need to create an account. I found a series called "Religion in American Life,"1 which has several books, each concentrating on a specific religion. I decided to concentrate on the religions I knew were followed by my ancestors and the general topics of "religion in colonial America" and "religion in 19th century America." I found a review of the series in a theological journal online which gave me some assurance that the series would be helpful.2

Because I am always trying to build my home library, I found a number of these books online at abebooks.com and purchased them to add to my library. They were very inexpensive with free shipping and will help me build my base knowledge.

Very recently released was a new book by Harold A. Henderson, CG and Sunny Jane Morton entitled, "How to Find Your Family History in U.S. Church Records: A Genealogist's Guide: With Specific Resources for Major Christian Denominations before 1900."3 It is available at Amazon and other markets.

I now have quite a bit of reading material to help me grow my basic understanding of the religions in early America. It's a good thing I love reading!

¹Butler, Jon and Harry S. Stout, editors, Religion in American Life, 17 vols. (New York: Oxford. 2000).

³Luke L. Keefer, Jr., “American Religion: A Review Article of the Series Religion in American Life,” Ashland Theological Journal 35 (2003): 87-96; image copy, biblicalstudies.org.uk. (https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/ashland_theological_journal/35-1_087.pdf : accessed 24 September 2015).

³Morton, Sunny Jane, and Harold A. Henderson. 2019. How to Find Your Family History in U.S. Church Records: A Genealogist's Guide ( n.p., Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc. 2019)