Zion Lutheran Church, Snyder County, Pennsylvania, 1889-1943

Snyder County is located in central Pennsylvania. This database contains a collection of records from Zion Lutheran Church in Kratzerville Township, which is in Snyder County. Researchers may find records of baptisms, marriages and burials for individuals who lived in the area from 1889 through 1943. For those interested in this central Pennsylvania community, this will be a helpful database.

Church records rank among the very best genealogical records available worldwide, but they are one of the most under-used sources in American genealogy. Until the advent of vital statistics in the United States, a very late development in most states, church records were the primary source of birth, marriage, and death information. The sheer number of denominations and affiliate churches has made identifying and locating their records a time-consuming ordeal for most genealogists. Church records vary a great deal in content and emphasis according to the basic theology of the religious group that created them.

Early immigrants from England, Scotland, and European countries brought their religious beliefs, institutions and customs with them, including the keeping of church books in which to record births, baptisms, confirmations, marriages, communion lists, deaths, and burials. Lutheran and Reformed records in Pennsylvania rank among the very best.