Source Information

Lineages, Inc., comp.. St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Fulton County, Pennsylvania, 1849-1906 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2000.
Original data: St. Paul's Lutheran Church records, 1849-1906. Original records at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

About St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Fulton County, Pennsylvania, 1849-1906

Fulton County lies on the southern border of Pennsylvania, with the Mason-Dixon Line serving as its southern boundary. This database contains a collection of records from St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Ayr Township, which lies in Fulton County. Researchers may find records of baptisms, marriages, and burials for individuals who lived in the area from 1849 through 1906.

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.