Source Information

Lineages, Inc., comp. Reformed Church of Maytown, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 1765-1819 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2001.
Original data: Transcript of baptismal record of the Reformed Church of Maytown, Lancaster County, 1765 (1774)-1819. Typescript held at the Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

About Reformed Church of Maytown, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 1765-1819

Maytown lies in the northwestern corner of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. This database contains records of the Reformed Church of Maytown. Researchers may find information regarding baptisms, marriages, and burials for the years 1765 to 1819.

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.