Researching Dakota Family History

Church Records

Church records can provide information about named individuals who were baptized, married, or buried by a congregation. Membership lists are available for some congregations. The MnHS Library has a rich but incomplete collection of records from denominations that proselytized Dakota people, including Presbyterian, Congregational, Episcopalian, and Roman Catholic, and from some specific congregations of those denominations.

Catholic Church (Roman Catholic)

• Cathedral of St. Paul Parish Record Books, 1840-1857
• Prairie du Chien and Galena Church Records, 1827-1829
• Prairie du Chien's Earliest Church Records, 1817
• * Register of Baptisms, Deaths, and Marriages Kept by Father Ravoux, 1841-1844, 1847
• Saint Leo's Catholic Church (Pipestone, Minn.) Baptism Records, 1878-1896
• Saint Raphael Cathedral (Dubuque, Iowa) Registers of Baptisms, 1839-1858

Episcopal Church

• Diocese of Minnesota. Diocesan Records
• * Parish Record Books, 1856-1985
• * Bishop Henry B. Whipple Records, 1859-1899

See also VITAL RECORDS for birth, marriage, and death records.