FILM DIGITISATION APPEAL

Here's your chance to save a film!

COMMEMORATING LUTHER

This year is the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. Discover how Lutherans have commemorated significant milestones since Luther nailed his '95 Theses' to the church door at Wittenberg.

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Become our friend!

Interested in history? Enjoy a good story? Want to learn more? Join our enthusiastic group of supporters by becoming a Friend of Lutheran Archives (FoLA). We encourage the collection and preservation of archival material and to promote the work of the Lutheran Archives.

MORE ABOUT FoLA

LCA Ministry Support

Lutheran Archives is a department of the Executive Office of the Church, also known as Ministry Support. It is one of five departments exercising the 'enabling' functions outlined in our Lutheran Church of Australia (LCA) Strategic Direction 2015–2018. Working with us are:

Together we provide the support services for LCA and Lutheran Church of New Zealand (LCNZ) agencies and congregations that enable them to focus on their mission and ministry activities (the 'go' and 'grow' priorities in our LCA Strategic Direction).

Please support us

This link takes you to our LCA online donation site, where you can pay securely via credit card.

Lutheran Archives

About us

Lutheran Archives holds a harvest of stories that show God’s love coming to life – the stories of the congregations, departments and the people of the church. Lutheran Archives gathers and preserves these stories from all over Australia and the Pacific – wherever the church is involved. We share the stories of the LCA/NZ across the church and in the wider public. We enable others to encounter these stories through research, so they can share their stories and experiences of love coming to life.

A wide variety of people access these records: congregations, family historians, academic researchers, creative artists and filmmakers. These records help people to write congregation histories, fill gaps in family trees, understand our cultural diversity, further Aboriginal language research, and restore identity. The power of these records cannot be overestimated.

By depositing records at Lutheran Archives, the stories of your ministries can be encountered by members of the church and public, told and disseminated to a myriad of audiences. We are able to turn your records deposited at Lutheran Archives into new ministries by providing and enabling access to them.

How we serve

As a ministry support department, Lutheran Archives is here to support you in your ministries. We can assist you with:

advice on managing your records
caring for your permanent records that you no longer regularly access.

Managing your records appropriately enables you to focus on carrying out your current ministries – beginning with records in your possession and continuing into the future when they are deposited at Lutheran Archives.

Lutheran Archives identifies records to be deposited. We make those records accessible through arrangement and description, indexing, translation and digitisation, and we provide contextual understanding for researchers to interpret those records.

Through presentations, exhibitions, publications, seminars and events, we disseminate the harvest of stories throughout the Lutheran community and beyond. Join Friends of Lutheran Archives to feast on these stories.

Partner with us

You and your ministries are the foundation of our ministry.

1. Ensure you create records within your congregation, mission, auxiliary
or department, and of your personal experiences in the church.

2. Manage those records appropriately while you are using them.

3. Deposit those records (minutes, correspondence, artefacts, films, photographs) when they are no longer being regularly used.

The fact that people in the past took the trouble to preserve their story means that we are blessed today with their harvest. Take the time today to preserve this generation’s fruit, so that there will be a harvest of stories for our children and grandchildren.

Events

From 1 JUNE – A Singing Church exhibition

Exhibition on display from 1 June

Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays – 9.30 am – 4.30 pm

Lutheran Archives, 27 Fourth St, Bowden SA

Lutheran settlers brought their musical heritage to Australia and nurtured it in congregations, missions, schools and youth groups, creating a culture of hymn-singing, choirs, organs, bands and concerts – and an occasional controversial dance. From the hymns that farewelled Prussian emigrants to post-war migrant musical evenings and the songs of the '70s, from Wendish hymnbooks to Aboriginal choirs singing in language: instruments, manuscripts, photos and books tell stories of conductors, choristers and musicians, hymn writers and hymn-book compilers, organ-builders, and pastors on bicycles.

1 AUGUST – Finding Forebears in Poland workshop

Researching German family history in present-day Poland
Speaker: Janette Lange

Wednesday 1 August 2018 – 1.30 pm – 4.30 pm

Lutheran Archives, 27 Fourth St, Bowden SA

Registration fee $30 | Includes Finding Forebears in Poland guide and afternoon tea
Bookings essential – contact Lutheran Archives to register
08 8340 4009 or lutheran.archives@lca.org.au

Want to research your German family history in present-day Poland? Planning a trip to your ancestors' homelands in the former Pomerania, Posen, Brandenburg or Silesia? This workshop will provide you with useful websites and the latest information about researching and travelling in the former Prussian provinces.

17 AUGUST – FRITZSCHE ORATION - A small cog in a large wheel: FRM's bush courses

A small cog in a large wheel: the FRM’s bush courses in Central Australia in the context of the preparation and support of Indigenous church workers.

Speaker: Dr Peter Lockwood

Friday, 17 August 2018 at 7.30 pm

Australian Lutheran College, corner Jeffcott and Ward Streets, North Adelaide

The Fritzsche Oration is a joint event of ALC's ALITE, Lutheran Archives, and Committee of Lutheran Archives.

This presentation takes you inside the bush courses for Indigenous pastors and evangelists that are held three times a year in the remote communities of the Finke River Mission field of Central Australia. The bush courses are a small but vital cog in the far larger wheel of training and supporting the LCA’s Indigenous church leaders.

Starting with a brief history of the courses and a description of the typical bush course, this year’s oration will give you an insight into some of the perennial issues that vex the minds of the FRM support staff, the Indigenous church workers, and the FRM board.

God willing, the issues will entertain your mind too because they inevitably morph into questions for the whole LCA to address as it continues to grapple with the vital task of preparing Indigenous church leaders for their calling and supporting them in it.

Congregation records – guidelines

This document provides information on what records congregations should keep and how to protect them. Click here to download.

'Stepping Stones'

Read the stories from one of The Lutheran's most popular columns.

Services

RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES

Our records cover significant themes in the history of Australia, including:

CHURCH HISTORY congregations, church ministries, departments and organisations
FAMILY HISTORY through parish registers of baptisms, confirmations, marriages and burials
ABORIGINAL languages, culture and history in comprehensive and detailed mission records
REFUGEE AND MIGRATION HISTORY 19^th century and post-WWII
SETTLEMENT AND LOCAL HISTORY through congregation records and registers which document the settlement of Lutherans in newly opened rural areas
LUTHERAN SCHOOLING in history of education
GERMAN-AUSTRALIAN language, traditions, media and cultural life – ‘Deutschtum’.

You can carry out research in person at our archives, or contact our staff by phone or email with your research inquiries.

GENEALOGY AND FAMILY HISTORY RESEARCH

The parish registers contain information on births, baptisms, confirmations, marriages, deaths and burials of people who were associated with the Lutheran Church. These are extremely valuable for family history research. To assist researchers a Church Records Computer Database Index has been prepared. A printout of the surname provides the researcher with an index to entries with that surname in the parish registers. This enables the researcher to quickly locate those records which may be useful. There is an additional charge for this service.

GERMAN LANGUAGE AND TRANSLATION

BOOK SALES

PHOTO REPRODUCTIONS

PHOTOCOPYING

TOURS

FEES

Scope of collection

RECORDS FROM LUTHERAN SYNODS

Kavel-Fritzsche Synod (1838–1846)
Langmeil-Light Pass Synod (1846–1874)
Bethany-Lobethal Synod (1846–1863)
Victoria Synod (1856–1921)
Tanunda-Light Pass Synod (1860–1874)
Evangelical Lutheran Synod in Australia (ELSA) (1863–1944)
Immanuel Synod (1874–1921)
General Synod (1876–1921)
Immanuel Synod a.a.G. (1884–1921)
Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Queensland (ELSQ) (1885–1921)
United German & Scandinavian Lutheran Synod of Qld (1885–1921)
ELSA a.a.G (1904–1926)
United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Australia (UELCA) (1921–1966)
Evangelical Lutheran Church of Australia (ELCA) (1944–1966)
Lutheran Church of Australia (LCA) (1966–)

TYPES OF RECORDS

Official histories of the Lutheran churches in Australia
Church departmental records
Church convention reports
Church almanacs and yearbooks
Church statistical records
Church periodicals (Australian, US, German etc)
Congregation histories and records
Parish registers
Parish papers
Biographical records of pastors and Lutheran teachers
Family history books
Mission magazines
Some shipping lists (SA, 1837–1870)
Special collections (Bibles, hymnbooks, catechisms, sermon books, devotion books, theology)
Photographs (churches, schools, missions, pastors, teachers)
Artefacts
Maps and atlases

Where to find us

Lutheran Archives
27 Fourth Street, Bowden SA 5007

TRAM

RAIL

BUS

CAR

TRAM

In King William Street or North Terrace, catch the tram to the Entertainment Centre at Hindmarsh. Cross Port Road (walking away from the Entertainment Centre) and walk south to Gibson Street and then north-east to Fourth Street. Note: this is a free service.

RAIL

BUS

CAR

Usual hours of business

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 9.30 am – 4.30 pm
Closed Wednesdays, weekends and public holidays

Closures: 16 - 27 July 2018 inclusive; 20 November 2018;
and 10 December 2018 - 11 January 2019 inclusive

NOTE: If Fourth Street is closed for building works, enter car park from Drayton Street.