Parish Records Project
The Grace Church ‘Parish Records’ project is an ongoing effort to digitize the Canonical Parish Register books. These registers contain information of parishioner births, baptisms, confirmations, communions, marriages, deaths, and burials. Additional records, such as cemetery records for the Grace Churchyard, will also be included as time permits.
The first phase in this effort is to extract the names and dates from the Register books and digitally store this information so that it may be queried and retrieved. This task has been completed for Register Book #1 (1853-1878) and #2 (1879-1927). The activities in this first phase have been greatly simplified by earlier extraction and consolidation work performed by other parishioners as well as the Clarke County Historical Association. Register Books #3 (1927-1953) and #4 (1954-Present) are yet to come.
The second phase in this effort will be to photograph the Register books and to link each electronic record with the image of the Register page that contains it. This will enable all who are interested to view the original record without putting undue wear and tear on the Register books and without requiring researchers to travel to Berryville, VA.
The final phase in this effort will be to include other historical records – such as historic photographs, cemetery plot information, vestry membership records, and rector biographies – within the collection.
If you have any questions concerning the project, please feel free to contact Stephen Kuehm at skuehm@yahoo.com
To access the records, visit the Grace Church Parish Records.