Finding Aids
Links below are made to portions of our website that have indexes to or additional information about the records. There generally are lots of places where you can find these kinds of records on and offline. For a comprehensive index of on and offline Mennonite genealogical sources see our companion website: mgdi.mennonitehistory.org
Part I. Books, Periodicals & Archival Records of specific help
to Family History Research
A. Records to help identify birth details
B. Records to help identify death details
- Biographies
- Cemetery Records - date of death on stone
- Census Records - if the person appears in a family in one census
and then is not in it at a later census (and can't be presumed to
have moved away)
- Church Records - may include burial date & burial location
- Family Histories/Genealogies
- GRANDMA
- Local Histories - often towards the back of the book in alphabetical
order by surname
C. Records to help identify marriage details
D. Records to help identify immigration details
E. Records to help identify how they spent their lives
- Biographies - lots of Mennonites self-publish their memoirs
- Census Records - identifies year of immigration
- Conference Histories
- Congregational Histories
- Directories
- Family Histories/Genealogies
- Local Histories
- Property Assessment Rolls
- School Records
- Service Organizations Histories
Part II. Records we have at the Mennonite Historical Society of Alberta
A. Biographies
- See BX 8107 Mennonite Encyclopaedia (thumbnail sketches) & online version - GAMEO
- See BX 8141 (short biographies about a collection of people)
- See BX 8143 (full-length book biographies about an individual or
couple)
- See Obituaries Indexes and Periodicals for Der Bote, Mennonite
Brethren Herald, Gospel Herald, & Mennonite Life -
may contain biographical information (periodical holdings at MHSA)
- See F 1070 - Local Histories often contain short biographies
- online biographical sketches
- MHSA published book by Irene Klassen, Their Mark: Their Legacy (purchase)
B. Cemetery Records
- See Cemetery Indexes (Call No. AI 1)
C. Census Records
D. Conference Histories
E. Congregational Histories
F. Church Records
- See BX 8129 (Bergthal Gemeinde Buch, Sommerfelder Gemeinde Buch, Reinlaender Gemeinde Buch, etc.) (purchase)
- See: History of Sommerfelder Mennonite Church
- See Chortitza Family Register (CD) (purchase)
- See Finding Aid for Congregations
G. Directories
H. Genealogies
- See CS 38
- See BX8119 - Henry Schapansky genealogically-focused book on first
settler families of Chortitza settlement in Russia (available for purchase)
- See Periodical shelf for Mennonite Family History, MHSA newsletter
& queries in Mennonite Historian; also holdings of major papers
I. GRANDMA
J. Local Histories
K. Immigration Records/Passenger Lists
- See BX 8129 (Bergthal Gemeinde Buch) - 1874-1880
- See Germans from Russia data disk files from George Dorscher
- See HA … for Canadian Mennonite Board of Colonization Records
(1923-1930) and Paraguay Immigration Lists (1926)
- See Canadian Mennonite Board of Colonization fonds for records regarding
settlement of Mennonites in Canada after WW II
L. Property Assessment Rolls
- See 1880 Village Census
of the Mennonite West Reserve in library (purchase)
M. School Records
- See BX 8107 for School Yearbooks
N. Service Organizations Histories (e.g. MCC, Women in Mission, etc.)
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