COLLECTION 004 · SGC-CH-004
Church burial & death records
New Haven & West Haven, Connecticut
Follow a name through church registers, annual death lists and historical inscriptions. Read the surviving text, open the original pages and find the next volume to request.
record roomRegisters · Death lists · Inscriptions
This collection covers several congregations and has no single opening date. These dates refer to Center Church on the Green; register dates are identified separately.
LOOK CLOSER · OPEN ANY IMAGE
The people and places in pictures
1970-10-16 per catalog
CENTER CHURCH OF THE GREEN; NEW HAVEN, CT
Center Church on the Green exterior. Exterior of Center Church on the Green in New Haven, preserved in a photograph cataloged as 1970.
Image credit & source
JERRYE AND ROY KLOTZ MD / Wikimedia Commons; creator's original upload or named collection
CC BY-SA 3.0
Original source · Reuse terms
April 29; catalog 2012, camera metadata 2011
Inscription on the facade of the Center Church on the Green, New Haven, Connecticut - 20120429
Historical inscriptions around Center Church's entrance window. Facade inscription on Center Church on the Green, New Haven.
Image credit & source
Smuconlaw (uploader Sgconlaw) / Wikimedia Commons; creator's original upload or named collection
CC BY-SA 3.0
Original source · Reuse terms
June 1967
Center Church, documented in 1967
The congregation was organized in 1639. Its fourth meeting house, built in 1812–1814, enclosed part of the town burial ground beneath the sanctuary. This later architectural photograph provides context for the Center Church records in the archive.
Image credit & source
Robert Fulton III, Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress. Public domain.
Public domain (U.S. federal government work; marked as such by Wikimedia Commons)
Original source · Reuse terms
12 October 2025
An older burial ground beneath the sanctuary
When Center Church was built in 1812–1814, the graves beneath its footprint remained in place. The church reports 137 surviving gravestones. The brick floor visible in this modern photograph replaced a concrete floor in 1990 as part of efforts to manage moisture around the stones.
Image credit & source
Marty Aligata / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Resized for display.
CC BY-SA4.0
Original source · Reuse terms.jpg){kind=link}
13 October 2013
The third sanctuary on West Haven Green
First Church began in 1719 after local farmers petitioned for a place to worship closer to home. Their original meeting house was replaced in 1851; after that building burned in 1857, the congregation built the present sanctuary in 1859. This photograph shows the later building, not the sanctuary used when the earliest church records were created.
Image credit & source
Paperchaser 29 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. Resized for display.
CC BY-SA3.0
Original source · Reuse terms
Photograph undated; published 1900
St. Mary’s Church in a 1900 diocesan history
This 1900 book presents a later chapter in New Haven’s Catholic history. It describes St. John’s as an offshoot of St. Mary’s and dates the dedication of the pictured Hillhouse Avenue church to October 25, 1874. This photograph illustrates that later St. Mary’s building; it must not be identified as the original 1834 Christ’s Church or Saint Bernard Cemetery.
Image credit & source
James H. O’Donnell, History of the Diocese of Hartford(1900), plate after printed page 336. University of Connecticut Libraries / Internet Archive. Public domain.
Public domain: published1900; Internet Archive metadata lists NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT.
Original source · Reuse termsRead the full history
EXECUTIVE HISTORY
Church records connect people, places and generations.
This collection brings together several congregations, so it has no single institutional opening date. Center Church traces its organization to 1639. Its present meeting house was built in 1812–1814 over part of the old town burial ground, preserving graves beneath the sanctuary. Center Church history.
The New Haven and West Haven sources include early Catholic burials, printed church death lists, historical gravestone inscriptions and catalogs of surviving manuscript registers. They were created for different purposes: a death list may identify a congregation member without naming a cemetery, while a gravestone transcription may describe a monument that was later moved.
For West Haven, the First Congregational Church catalog identifies death and funeral subseries beginning in 1774 and 1863, alongside a volume of deaths for 1881. Those are record-series dates, not the congregation’s founding date. The collection retains their access leads while manuscript scans are still being sought. Read the register catalog.
THE ILLUSTRATED ARCHIVE
The places behind the parish records
June 1967
Center Church, documented in 1967
The congregation was organized in 1639. Its fourth meeting house, built in 1812–1814, enclosed part of the town burial ground beneath the sanctuary. This later architectural photograph provides context for the Center Church records in the archive.
Robert Fulton III, Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress. Public domain. · Reuse termsRead the source
12 October 2025
An older burial ground beneath the sanctuary
When Center Church was built in 1812–1814, the graves beneath its footprint remained in place. The church reports 137 surviving gravestones. The brick floor visible in this modern photograph replaced a concrete floor in 1990 as part of efforts to manage moisture around the stones.
Marty Aligata / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Resized for display. · Reuse termsRead the source
13 October 2013
The third sanctuary on West Haven Green
First Church began in 1719 after local farmers petitioned for a place to worship closer to home. Their original meeting house was replaced in 1851; after that building burned in 1857, the congregation built the present sanctuary in 1859. This photograph shows the later building, not the sanctuary used when the earliest church records were created.
Paperchaser 29 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. Resized for display. · Reuse termsRead the sourceFrom a congregation’s list to a person’s history
Church records were created for particular communities and purposes. A funeral entry, a death list and a monument transcription may refer to the same person while recording different events. Their dates and terms need to be read in that context. A death among congregation members does not automatically establish burial in a particular cemetery, and a moved inscription may no longer occupy its original location.
Center Church’s 1639 organization and the 1812–1814 construction of its present meeting house illustrate the difference between a congregation and a building. Graves beneath the sanctuary preserve an earlier burial landscape within a later structure. Photographs of the crypt, exterior or inscriptions can help explain that layered history, provided each image’s subject and date remain explicit.
The West Haven register leads identify death and funeral subseries with their own date ranges. They are a route toward original manuscript evidence, not a claim that every page has already been copied. The archive’s searchable text makes scattered references easier to discover, but OCR can misread names and numbers. Returning to the scan is part of the historical method: discovery produces a candidate match, and comparison of original records determines whether it belongs to the person being researched.
NEW TRANSCRIPTIONS · 1869–1870
Center Church annual death lists
27 dated deaths and an earlier correction, with original page images.
Read a recordWEST HAVEN · LOCATED HOLDINGS
Three death and funeral subseries
First Congregational Church’s catalog identifies these volumes:
- Volume 8: deaths, 1774–1843
- Volume 10: funerals, 1863–1916
- Volume 11: deaths, 1881
Film 6269 · Digital image group 8615152
Originals: Connecticut State Library
THE SEARCHABLE CATALOG
Find a person or a source
Search the complete OCR text of nine downloaded historical volumes and one supplemental grave-reference page. Results are pages, not verified individual burials. OCR can misread names, dates and columns; use the original scan to confirm a match.
New Haven · CH-P006-0033
Davenport Church manual, 1863 · scan page 33
Membership and death references · OCR textNew Haven · CH-P008-0041
Center Church annual manuals: 1870 and 1871 · scan page 41
Printed church death lists · OCR textNew Haven · CH-P008-0087
Center Church annual manuals: 1870 and 1871 · scan page 87
Printed church death lists · OCR textNew Haven · CH-P008-0089
Center Church annual manuals: 1870 and 1871 · scan page 89
Printed church death lists · OCR textNew Haven · CH-P009-0039
New Haven tombstone inscriptions erected before 1800 · scan page 39
Inscription transcriptions · OCR textNew Haven · CH-P009-0049
New Haven tombstone inscriptions erected before 1800 · scan page 49
Inscription transcriptions · OCR textNew Haven · CH-P009-0075
New Haven tombstone inscriptions erected before 1800 · scan page 75
Inscription transcriptions · OCR textNew Haven · CH-P009-0080
New Haven tombstone inscriptions erected before 1800 · scan page 80
Inscription transcriptions · OCR textNew Haven · CH-P009-0089
New Haven tombstone inscriptions erected before 1800 · scan page 89
Inscription transcriptions · OCR textREADING THE EVIDENCE
Keep the churches and record types distinct.
Christ’s Church / St. John’s: the supplied table concerns New Haven’s early Catholic congregation. It is distinct from the Episcopal Christ Church parishes in New Haven and West Haven. Memorial transfers to Saint Bernard do not by themselves establish reinterment.
Death, membership and burial: a church death list records a member’s death; a membership catalogue may contain admissions, removals and death annotations. Neither necessarily identifies the grave. Dexter’s inscription volumes describe historical stones, including some moved from the Green. Typographic distinctions and original locations require the scans.
Work still needed: West Haven’s First Congregational register images; Episcopal Christ Church and Trinity burial subseries; other Catholic, Protestant and independent parish registers; later and undigitized volumes. No complete census of every congregation’s surviving records has been established. Sign-in, reading-room access or permission may be required by a custodian.
Using the download: extract the ZIP and open START_HERE.html to search without an account or an internet connection. It includes the supplied PDF, selected historical pages, all acquired OCR text, source notes, JSON data and a searchable SQLite database. Repository links need internet access.