St. Johns Lutheran Church Records

EGS sincerely thanks the members of the St. John's Lutheran Church, its pastor Thomas Niermann and its office staff for allowing us access to the old records. Their helpfulness and assistance is greatly appreciated. St John's Lutheran Church and School are located at 101 N. Spring Street in Elgin, Illinois

The oldest “kirchenbach” (church book) available to us begins in 1867 and best essay writing runs through 1884. We call this book Vol. 1. This volume is written in old German script and is very yellowed and brittle from age. We have done our best to translate the entries as accurately as possible. However, we know that errors will have occurred; therefore, when searching these records, be sure to look for possible variant spellings. Within the pages spelling often changes, but, based on other information, it becomes obvious the person/family remains the same. Also, the condition of the book made reading some beginning and/or ending letters impossible to extract.

These files contain more than   just an index to the records; included are all the details written by the recorder. The extraneous items are found in the Comments field on our files.

The church book has been photographed and is now digitally preserved. The online entries contain the complete details as recorded in the church book. If you find an entry and would like a copy of the original page, you can do so by contacting the Elgin Genealogical Society, PO Box 1418, Elgin, Illinois 60121-1418 or email: Elgin Genealogical Society. Please provide the volume number (additional volumes will be added as they are completed) and page number as given in the online file. We will provide a hardcopy of up to five pages for a donation of $5.00 and an SASE. We will send pages by email attachments for a donation of $2.50 for up to five pages.

Special thanks go to EGS member Cheri Sandberg who first brought these records to our attention. Many thanks are extended to the dedicated volunteers who are working on this venture.