Minutes, November 1858-January 1875 -- CARLI Digital Collections Featured Image

I was delighted when North Park University published this collection of 19th century records from St. Ansgarius Episcopal Church in Chicago. My understanding is that many of these documents have been restricted for years due to their fragile condition, so it is wonderful that we can now view them online in digital format.

St. Ansgarius Church was founded in 1849 and was located in what is now the River North neighborhood of Chicago. During the latter 19th century and early 20th century, it served an important role in the fast-growing community of Swedish immigrants in Chicago.

The pages featured here are from a collection of minutes of the vestry of the parish. The vestry includes the pastor and elected representatives from the parish, and the minutes reveal the business and concerns of the parish community. These two pages contain the minutes of the vestry meetings for August and September of 1859.

My particular delight in this digital collection comes from the fact that at the beginning of this year, I was elected to serve on the vestry at my own Episcopal parish for the first time. As a newbie vestry member, I am still learning the ins and outs of parish business, but I am curious about how the concerns of a modern parish might compare to the issues the parishioners of St. Ansgarius might have faced. I was curious enough that even the fact that the records are in Swedish did not quite deter me as I opened up Google translate and attempted my own rudimentary translation. But, alas, the challenges of both the Swedish language and the flowing, sometimes illegible cursive script prevented my efforts. This collection is sure to delight genealogists and local history researchers, however, who may have better luck at deciphering the text.

Written by Alice Creason, Head of Library Technology and Technical Services at Lewis University

For more information about this and other CARLI Digital Collections, visit http://collections.carli.illinois.edu

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