A researcher's request for church records led to an intensive effort by U.W.-Platteville's Karrmann Library to borrow and microfilm such records and resulted in this microfilm collection. Included are records from over 50 churches in southwestern Wisconsin and nearby areas, representing the Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopal, United Church of Christ, Baptist, and Presbyterian denominations.
The records included vary with each church but most often comprise registers of baptisms, marriages, and deaths, membership records, and minutes of church or trustee meetings. Sunday School records and records of men's and women's church clubs are sometimes included. Frequently, the nineteenth century records are in a foreign language, most often German.
The researcher using these records will confront several problems. Because of the rapidity with which they were filmed, the records are in no order on the film other than being grouped by church or circuit. The targets labelling what follows are not always correct, nor is a target always present when a new volume starts. Denominational mergers sometimes disguise a congregation's past name. One additional caution concerns the significance of the term “baptisms.” Sometimes this indicates actual baptisms performed and sometimes it indicates names and baptism data for children members of the church. The reel descriptions do not distinguish between the two kinds of data because the pastors themselves often combined the two kinds of lists.
Most confusing however are the changing boundaries of the church circuits covered by the records. A circuit was a group of churches which shared a pastor. The pastor often maintained the circuit's records in one book, and as churches were added or removed from the circuit, entries for their members appear or disappear from the record book. Where shifting boundaries have been detected, we have indicated which churches are included in the volume description. Undoubtedly however these shifts have not always been detected and the researcher may wish to check record books from other churches which may have shared a circuit with the church of the researcher's immediate concern.
The appendix, located after the reel list below, contains an index to the microfilm by location and church name. The reel list below provides the reel number and details on the contents of the records in the order in which they appear on the film.
