In addition to church records available through internet sources like Ancestry, we also use records and history books which may or may not be published. 

Churches use a variety of methods to hold their records and histories.  For example, some congregations have put together unpublished scrapbooks.  Master copies of church bulletins and announcements may be bound or in files.  Others publish small printed editions of their history or records for anniversaries.  

A few churches have extensive histories of their cemeteries. Some of the cemetery records may contain information on early burials which include birth and death details that are not recorded in any public record.  We often have to seek out original cemetery records because gravestones are missing or damaged. 

Many of the church and cemetery records are original, one-of-a-kind.  Whenever possible, we scan these records so that duplicate copies can be maintained by the church in multiple locations.