Ancestry.com has two seemingly similar record sets: “U.S., Evangelical Lutheran Church in America [ELCA] Church Records, 1826-1945” “U.S., Evangelical Lutheran Church in America[ELCA], Swedish American Church Records, 1800-1946.” Researchers can potentially get them confused. “U.S., Evangelical Lutheran Church in America [ELCA] Church Records, 1826-1945” does not contain records of every ELCA congregation. The digital images that Ancestry.com […]

There may just be the addition of missing images here, but Ancestry.com has updated the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America). I noted a few images that were unavailable the last time I checked, but my use of the database is limited to congregations in western Illinois and parts of Nebraska. Remember that names of sponsors and witnesses […]

Names can create all sorts of problems for the genealogist. The first illustration in this post is from a search of the  ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) records at Ancestry.com that was conducted for the name of Sartorius in the location of Carthage, Hancock County, Illinois. The search interface will bring a result as long […]