Family Bibles: When the Family Record Was Written by Hand
By Gayle Van Horn
Long before online databases, courthouse indexes and genealogy websites, many families kept their most important records in one very special place — the family Bible.
Passed from one generation to another, these treasured books often contain much more than scripture. Tucked between their pages or carefully written in designated family record sections may be births, marriages, and deaths spanning several generations. Occasionally, a family Bible preserves information that cannot be found anywhere else.
For genealogists, finding one can be like opening a small family archive.
What Can a Family Bible Tell Us?
Beginning especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, many Bibles included pages specifically intended for recording family events. Entries might include:
Full names and birth dates of children
Marriage dates and names of spouses
Death dates
Names of parents and grandparents
Places of birth or residence
Baptisms or christenings
Names of ministers or churches
But don't stop with the official record pages.
Family Bibles sometimes became repositories for anything considered important enough to save. Obituaries, funeral cards, newspaper clippings, locks of hair, photographs, handwritten notes, pressed flowers, and old letters may still be tucked between their pages.
Each item can provide another clue to the family's story.
A Record That May Exist Nowhere Else
The greatest genealogical value of a family Bible becomes apparent when researching a period or place where civil records are incomplete or nonexistent.
A handwritten birth date from the early 1800s, for example, might predate state-required birth certificates by many decades. A marriage entry might identify a woman's maiden name that disappeared from later records. The names of children who died young might appear in the Bible even though they never appeared in a census.
Sometimes one small entry can break through a genealogical brick wall.
But there is an important caution.
Is Everything Written in a Family Bible Correct?
Not necessarily.
Like every genealogical source, Bible records need to be evaluated.
One of the first things I look at is the handwriting and ink. Were all the entries apparently written by the same person at the same time? Or were births, marriages and deaths recorded gradually over many years?
Suppose a Bible contains birth dates for family members born between 1790 and 1840, but the Bible itself was printed in 1875. Obviously, those early dates were copied from another source or supplied from someone's memory.
That doesn't make the information worthless. It simply changes how we should evaluate it.
An entry apparently written shortly after an event may carry more evidentiary weight than one copied decades later.
Check the Bible's Publication Date
This is one of the easiest clues to overlook.
Look for the title page and publication information. Compare the date the Bible was printed with the dates of the family entries.
If someone supposedly recorded a birth in 1825 in a Bible printed in 1860, you immediately know the entry wasn't contemporary with the event.
Also examine differences in handwriting, ink and writing instruments. A change may indicate that another generation took over responsibility for maintaining the family record.
Those differences aren't flaws. In fact, they can help reconstruct the history of the Bible itself.
Who Actually Owned the Bible?
Provenance — the history of who owned an object — is particularly important with family Bibles.
Try to determine who originally owned it and how it passed from one generation to another. An inscription such as "Presented to Mary by her mother" can be enormously valuable.
Write down what you know about its ownership.
If Aunt Sarah inherited it from her mother, who received it from her grandmother, record that information. Future generations may otherwise have no idea how the Bible became part of the family collection.
Treat Bible Entries as Evidence, Not Proof by Themselves
A family Bible can be a wonderful genealogical source, but whenever possible, compare its information with other records.
Search for supporting evidence in census records, marriage licenses, church registers, cemetery records, probate files, military records, obituaries, newspapers, and death certificates.
Sometimes the records will agree perfectly.
Sometimes they won't.
And that's when genealogy gets interesting.
A discrepancy isn't necessarily a problem to be discarded. It is something to investigate. Why does the gravestone say 1848 while the family Bible says 1847? Which record was created closest to the person's birth? Who supplied the information?
Those questions are part of evaluating genealogical evidence.
Preserve the Entire Record
If you are fortunate enough to own or locate a family Bible, don't photograph only the page containing your ancestor's name.
Photograph or scan:
The Bible's cover
Title and publication pages
Ownership inscriptions
Every family record page
Handwritten notes
Newspaper clippings and obituaries
Photographs and funeral cards
Anything tucked between the pages
Keep the images together and identify the present owner of the Bible and, if known, its chain of ownership.
Most importantly, don't throw away an unidentified clipping, photograph or scrap of paper simply because you don't immediately recognize its significance. Tomorrow's research may tell you exactly why someone placed it there.
What If the Family Bible Is No Longer in the Family?
Don't assume the record is lost forever.
Bible records have been copied, transcribed, photographed and donated to genealogical and historical societies, libraries, archives and museums. Some have appeared in published genealogical journals and books, while digitized collections have placed others online.
Search using the family surname along with terms such as "family Bible," "Bible records" and the county or state where the family lived.
Also ask relatives.
The family Bible you assumed disappeared generations ago may simply have followed another branch of the family.
More Than a Genealogical Source
There is another reason family Bibles fascinate me.
Unlike a census record or courthouse certificate, this was something our ancestors actually touched.
They opened it. They wrote in it. They placed photographs and clippings between its pages. Someone carefully entered the birth of a new child. Years later, perhaps another hand recorded that person's marriage or death.
Those handwritten entries transformed an ordinary book into a family record.
Today, we have enormous collections of genealogical information available with a few clicks of a mouse. Our ancestors didn't have that luxury.
Sometimes their family history was preserved one handwritten line at a time.
And occasionally, generations later, we're fortunate enough to find it.
