Since 1939, the St. Paul staff has maintained obituary records for all church members. In most cases, the information is from newspaper obituaries. In situations where no newspaper article existed, handwritten notes were made.

      For the years 1939 to 1948, these records are digitized on our website with instructions for accessing them outlined in the next paragraph. If you desire obituary records for other years or if you would like access to birth and marriage records, please complete the Archive Contact Form highlighted below.

      To access the 1939 to 1948 obituary records, there are two files for each year (an index file and an obituary file). The index file contains names (including maiden), age at death, date of death, as well as a record number for each person. The record number is used to search the obituary file for the newpaper article or the handwritten note.

      To assist in the process, all data in the index file and the record number in the obituary file are searchable. Once the index is open, Ctrl+f for Microsoft Windows and Command+f for Apple Macintosh will bring up a small search box.  As an example, type the last name in the search box and press enter to find the last name of the person. The system will search for the characters entered, including when the characters are embedded in another name. For example, searching for "Smith", the system will find matches with "Smith" as well as with "Klingensmith" and "Smithton".

      For additional help or information, please contact the St. Paul Archivists using the Archive Contact Form: