Once this information is obtained, telephone books of the locality can give them phone numbers for the churches or church archive offices near their ancestor's home. Catholic and other liturgical churches are often grouped into dioceses which often keep local archives of old church records. Non-liturical Protestant churches are sometimes organized into associations and these groups may also contain historical documents. Even the small independent churches are required by law to record marriages they perform, so usually churches still in existance will have some records. Not all churches still exist, of course, so it is a good idea to find out the history of the particular church you need.
Most churches only keep records back to the date the church or parish was formed.
To find previous records, one needs to research the parent church or congregation, as earlier church events in the family's life may have occured there. Infomation about local churches and their histories is becoming available on the web as local historians begin to record church histories as part of an overall effort to preserve local history online. An excellent example of this is Joe Hayden's Buffalo's Faith Elevators site about churches in Buffalo, New York. Unfortunately, you do get ads with this listserv however. Using Church Records Churches, like government entities, keep the records they need for their own purposes.