Suppose you had a female ancestor who lived in St. Louis in the 1860s, but you couldn’t discover her birth date. There are no statewide birth records in Missouri prior to 1910, and, although the City of St. Louis kept a birth register, compliance was not compulsory; hence, it is incomplete. Religious records would be very helpful, as births, baptisms, confirmations, and other life events were usually recorded by religious leaders and kept on site. You know where your ancestor lived and what religion her family practiced, but how do you know what congregations were active at the time she was born? A new set of congregations maps is now live on our website, and an exciting feature of the maps is the ability to see exactly which churches and synagogues were open in the city and county at any given time. Let’s take a look!
StLGS co-webmaster, Jim Bellenger, has created maps for eight different religious groups in St. Louis City and County:
- Baptist: https://stlgs.org/research-2/congregations/baptist/baptist-churches/baptist-churches-map
- Catholic: https://stlgs.org/research-2/congregations/catholic/catholic-churches/catholic-churches-map
- Episcopal: https://stlgs.org/research-2/congregations/episcopal/episcopal-churches/episcopal-churches-map
- Jewish: https://stlgs.org/research-2/congregations/jewish/jewish-synagogues-and-temples/jewish-synagogues-and-temples-map
- Lutheran: https://stlgs.org/research-2/congregations/lutheran/lutheran-churches/lutheran-churches-map
- Methodist: https://stlgs.org/research-2/congregations/methodist/methodist-churches/methodist-churches-map
- Presbyterian: https://stlgs.org/research-2/congregations/presbyterian/presbyterian-churches/presbyterian-churches-map
- United Church of Christ (UCC): https://stlgs.org/research-2/congregations/ucc/ucc-churches/ucc-churches-map
(You can also reach these new maps from the "New on This Site" page of our website at https://stlgs.org/new-on-this-site-2024)
Each map is based on a current Google map, and you can zoom in and out by using the scroll wheel on your mouse or the plus/minus signs in the upper left corner of the map (first arrow below). Complete directions for using the maps are also provided on a separate Congregations Map Help page that you can access from the top of the map or the bottom (center arrow below).
One helpful feature of each map is the Year Range slider box in the lower left (see map above; arrow on bottom facing left). You can use this to narrow results to a particular time period. For example, if your female ancestor was Lutheran and born around 1845, you can use the slider (or the tiny up/down arrows) in the box to set a minimum year of 1845 and a maximum year of 1850, narrowing to a five-year spread, to see which Lutheran churches were active when she was likely to have been baptized.
With the range now limited to just those five years, the map (below) shows only six likely Lutheran churches. You can concentrate on those in locations near where your people lived. Zoom in on the map for more details on the exact locations of churches your family might have attended.
Click on a location icon on the map to get information about the church (see below). If you are an StLGS member, you can click on the name of a church or synagogue to go to that congregation's page on our website and the records from that congregation.
More to Come!
These new maps are just the tip of the iceberg. Also in the works:
- Dozens of maps that will enhance most of our cemetery pages
- Updates to some of our older web pages
- Funeral home records that have never been online
See More at Our Open House, Saturday, 23 March 2024!
To learn more about some of the new features on our website, or if you just want to stop in to say hello, come to our Open House this Saturday, March 23rd, from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. Volunteers will be on hand to take you on a tour of the office, help you register for upcoming events, and tell you more about our German, Irish, and Jewish Special Interest Groups, Ask Louie service, and First Families of St. Louis program. We’ll have coffee and cookies, the lobby book sales/Trading Post will be open, and you can enter two drawings for free (or renewal) memberships. All the details are on our website, including an informational flyer you can download. We look forward to seeing you on Saturday!
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