Maryland County Church and Cemetery Records

See Also Research In State Church & Cemetery Records - Church records rank among the most promising of genealogical records available. Indeed, for periods before the advent of civil registration of vital statistics (a very late development in many American states) , church records rank as the best available sources for information on specific vital events: birth, marriage, and death. They are also among the most under-used major records in American genealogy. Part of the reason lies in the number of denominations-there are hundreds of them. Identifying and locating the records of these various churches makes even professional genealogists hesitate......

The largest collection of church records is at the Maryland Historical Society, with a consolidated index, and many are at the Maryland State Archives, which has various original and microfilmed records, many with indexes. Some church records have been published in the Maryland Genealogical Society Bulletin or in individual books, such as those for St. Paul's in Baltimore and for many German churches in the western counties.

Although Catholicism is very important to the history of Maryland, the disenfranchisement of Catholics after the establishment of the Anglican church in 1692 largely contributed to the lack of record keeping prior to the Revolutionary War.

Records of the German churches and the Society of Friends are very good. The latter were early settlers of Maryland, along with Anglicans and Catholics.

Search Maryland Historical Records - Databases include Court, Land, Wills & Financial Records; Birth, Marriage & Death Records; Voter Lists & Census Records; Immigration & Emigration Records; Obituary Records; Military Records; Family Tree Records; Pictures; Stories, Memories & Histories; Directories & Member Lists and much more....

Cemeteries - The Maryland State Archives has indexes to cemetery records for various time periods. Some have been published in the Maryland Genealogical Society Bulletin and other journals and in individual works covering large parts of Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Dorchester, Frederick, Garrett, St. Marys, Somerset, Wicomico, and Worcester counties. A great number of grave marker inscriptions have been transcribed by members of the Maryland DAR and will be found at the Maryland Historical Society and the DAR Library in Washington, D.C.

Maryland Cemetery Books at Amazon.com

Cemetery records and gravestone inscriptions are a rich source of information for family historians. Cemetery and other sources of information associated with death include:

FOR DEFINITIONS OF ALL CEMETERY TERMS SEE THE GENEALOGY ENCYCLOPEDIA
Biographical works Burial permits Church burial registers Cemetery records (often several different kinds are kept) Cemetery indexes (often compiled by genealogical societies) Cemetery sextons’ records Cemetery deed and plot registers Death certificates Death indexes Family bibles Family burial plots	Funeral director’s records Grave opening orders Gravestone (monument) inscriptions Military records Monuments and memorials Necrologies Newspaper death notices Obituaries Probate records Published death records Religious records Transcriptions of cemetery inscriptions