The Congregational Library & Archives holds material of particular interest to genealogists and family historians, including vital records from hundreds of New England churches.
Search the online catalog for local church and town histories among the 225,000 books, pamphlets, periodicals, and manuscripts in the library’s collection. Our obituary database has biographical information on over 30,000 Congregational ministers and missionaries from 1600 to the present. Digitized Congregational Yearbooks provide even more information.
Our New England’s Hidden Histories project digitizes and transcribes Congregational church records which often contain important genealogical information such as marriage records, birth and death records, and baptism records, as well as collections of personal papers and other items related to Congregational ministers and their families in New England. For more information on church records relating to Black or Indigenous people in New England congregations, please consult the Black & Indigenous Research Guide.
If you have questions about doing genealogical research at the CLA or using our collections, please contact us at ref@14beacon.org for more information
Online Catalog
From manuscripts to books, sermons, digitized records, and so much more, search our catalog to discover all the items we hold at the CLA.
Digital Archive
Our digitized material covers an array of locations and topics, and we are continuously adding new resources you can access anywhere.
Obituary Database
Our obituary database provides demographic information on Congregational ministers and missionaries, from the 1600s to the present.
Congregational Yearbooks
Find centuries of reports, statistics, obituaries, and other data about Congregational churches in our collection of Yearbooks.
New England's Hidden Histories
NEHH is a digital project of the CLA that digitizes and provides access to early New England Congregational church records.
Black & Indigenous Research Guide
A guide to locating the CLA's records relating to Black and Indigenous people in early New England Congregational churches.