Members of the Historical Society congregations within the Stone-Campbell Movement, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) ministries , and the public are welcome to conduct both in-person and remote research. We encourage you to explore both the Remote Research and In-Person Research guidelines before exploring our Frequently Asked Questions below.
Frequently Asked Questions
The Disciples of Christ Historical Society holds over 14,000 linear feet (nearly three linear miles!) of archival collections, reference files, books, pamphlets, periodicals, and artifacts that document the history of the Stone-Campbell movement from its early 19th-century origins to the present day.
The archival collections include the personal papers of clergy, missionaries, and others who contributed to the work and thought of the three primary streams of the Stone-Campbell movement, congregational records, regional ministry records, general ministry records, and records of other organizations that emerged from and supported the Stone-Campbell movement. The archival collection includes a wide variety of material formats, including photographs, sound recordings, and audiovisual materials.
The collection also includes tens of thousands of reference files containing information about people, congregations, and organizations of the Stone-Campbell tradition that may or may not be represented in the Society’s archival collections and published holdings.
The Disciples of Christ Historical Society collects and preserves records from across the Stone-Campbell movement. Our collection is extensive and growing, and our staff and budget are relatively small. To ensure time and funds are utilized to support the longevity of the collection as a whole and to best meet the needs of our users, we must be selective about the materials we digitize. Digitizing materials sustainably takes considerable infrastructure, time, care, and expense.
Additionally, some materials digitized are not publicly available online but can be made available to individual researchers. If your query pertains to digitized materials not online, we will share the digitized materials with in-person researchers or, in some circumstances, with remote researchers using a file-sharing service.
Finally, researchers should remember that the Disciples of Christ Historical Society is only of many Stone-Campbell libraries and archives. University and seminary libraries and archives affiliated with our tradition also have digitized materials available for public research.
Currently, the Society does not have an online database describing all of its holdings. About 60% of our published holdings are represented in WorldCat, which you may search. We are building a database of archival finding aids and reference file inventories, but this will take time. If you wonder whether we have materials on a topic of interest, we recommend that you contact us at [email protected]. A staff member will respond to you within a few weeks with information about collection materials that may support your research.
If you are interested in collection materials that cannot be found online, please contact the Disciples of Christ Historical Society. Complete the form on our contact page, and a staff member will reach out to you to discuss the best path to connecting you to the desired materials. For relatively simple inquiries, such as verifying collection holdings and significant dates, we may provide information to you over the phone or via email. For more substantial research requests, like histories of congregations, buildings, and missions or biographical research about clergy and missionaries, we will recommend that you come to our facilities in Bethany, West Virginia, to conduct in-person research.
To schedule an in-person research appointment, please email us at [email protected] at least one week in advance of the date you would like to come. We regret that we cannot accommodate walk-ins.
You do NOT need a membership to conduct research or to gain access to the materials at the Disciples of Christ Historical Society. Members are offered additional benefits including:
- Members receive one to three hours of free remote research services per year, depending on membership level
- A Subscription to monthly “Disciples History News & Updates” e-newsletter
- Receive the Disciples History print newsletter in the mail every quarter
- A discount in the DCHS store that increases based on membership level
- This year’s edition of Disciples History Trading Cards
- Disciples History memorabilia
If you are interested in becoming a member, please visit our membership page.
No. Some collections have donor-imposed restrictions that prevent us from sharing the collection with researchers until a mutually agreed-upon date. Access to the post-1968 Regional and General Ministry records of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) requires the written permission of both the President of the Historical Society and the Chief Executive of the General Ministry, Office of the General Minister and President, or Region that created the records.
If you would like to make a remote scanning or digitization request, please email us at [email protected]. We will do our best to meet your needs. Due to staffing limitations, we reserve the right to limit the amount of time we spend scanning or digitizing materials.