Brethren Cemeteries

A central tenet of the organization of the Fellowship has been the encouragement of the collection of cemetery records. This site is the gathering point for the collection and dissemination of Brethren cemetery records. The USGenWeb project is the organization on which to place records on the internet at the county level. Here we will attempt to link all known "Brethren" cemeteries which are listed on the internet.

A good place to start your search of the internet is, of course, "Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet" at http://www.cyndislist.com/cemetery.htm. Many of these other cemetery websites can be connected through Cyndi's list.

And, of course, there is now findagrave and even better still, billiongraves.

The Cemetery Listing Association (CLA) collects cemetery research by individual genealogists and has a mailing list.

See the Tombstone Transcription Project at http://usgwtombstones.org/ for an overview.

Most cemetery records and gravestone data accessible through GenWeb are not yet in a searchable database. Although a plain typescript is acceptable, volunteers who are willing to transcribe data or to compile the information are wanted. For an example of Brethren cemetery data on the internet, see my reading of the Pleasant Dale Church of the Brethren Cemetery at the Adams County IN GenWeb site. Ultimately, the goal of this project will be to place all of these Brethen-related cemeteries' records online and to have them searchable.

Assistance at every stage will be appreciated. 1)Identify cemeteries, 2)Determine record availability, 3)Read and transcribe records, and 4)Contribute to county GenWeb site and link to this page and 5)Send printed copies to Brethren Historical Library and Archives (BHLA) and any other interested repository.

I do not know how many "Brethren" cemeteries there are, nor the percentage of churches associated with a church cemetery. The number of churches (congregations) listed in the Brethren Encyclopedia, published in 1983, is 1,548 (1980). In the United States, there were:

* [Brethren Encyclopedia: v.3, p.1466]

For genealogical purposes, those churches no longer extant, but with surviving cemeteries, are also important.

The following list of Brethren congregations (column three) has been copied, with permission by the Brethren Encyclopedia Board of Directors (approved at their April 1998 meeting), from the list which appears in Volume 3, pages 1479 - 1503. [Copyright, 1983-84. All rights reserved. No portion of these volumes may be reproduced in any manner without written permission of The Brethren Encyclopedia, Inc., except brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.]

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The three columns below are spun around from their expected order so that the text will line up better for a better visual appearance. The first column (cem) indicates references to the associated cemetery. Links are to an online reading of cemetery inscriptions or an article associated with this page discussing published records and where they may be obtained. The second column (v._,p.____) is the reference for the article on the congregation which appears in the Brethren Encyclopedia (and if ever to be highlighted would be a link to an online copy of the Encyclopedia article -- not anticipated). The third column, then, is the list of Brethren congregations in the United States as taken from the Encyclopedia's Volume 3 and links will be to the congregations own homepage.