Tips for Researching Local Church History

These are suggestions for doing research on your own using material available in Bridwell’s open stacks, and do not cover material available in Bridwell’s Methodist Reference section. For assistance with Methodist Reference or archival materials, which must be used in a supervised setting, please see the reference librarian, or contact Sally Hoover at (214) 768-1696. For a description of these collections, see the Methodist Studies page of the Bridwell Library web site:

http://www.smu.edu/bridwell/methodiststudies/methodiststudies.htm

In the Reference room:
Who’s Who in the Methodist Church (1966), Ref. BY 50 .W5 1952
Historical Marker Texts for Methodist Churches in Texas (1989), Ref. BY 1723 .T4 H57 1988
The Methodist Excitement in Texas (1984), Ref BY 1723 .T4 M1
Texas Methodist Newspaper Abstracts, 4 vols. (1987), Ref. BY 1723 .T4 L88 1987

In the open stacks in Bridwell’s basement:
Current copies of Methodist Conference Journals can be found immediately around the corner from the computer lab, on the range of shelves facing the elevator.
Southwestern Historical Quarterly (with cumulative index) shelved alphabetically by title in the periodicals section
Local Texas church histories, running alphabetically by town name, can be found in the call number range that falls between BY 1730.A2 E33 1995 (Abilene) through BY 1730 .Z32 H57 (Zapata).
General histories of Methodism in Texas can be found between BY 1723 .T4 and BY 1725 .T4

Online
The Dallas Morning News Historcial Archive, (1885-1977)—through SMU’s online catalog (Poni). Simply enter Dallas Morning News in a Basic Search, click on Journal Title, and hit enter.
The Handbook of Texas Online: http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online
The United Methodist Church Library online (lists archives and other resources): http://www.umc.org/churchlibrary/historyreasearch.htm
Bridwell’s Center for Methodist Studies: http://www.smu.edu/bridwell/html/studies.html

Last updated August 2007