Special Collections and University Archives: Family History and Religious Institutions

Welcome to the Special Collections and University Archives research guide for New Jersey family history and religious institutions. The resources provided in this guide include personal papers, family papers, and children's and welfare service records, as well as records of various religious institutions. The guide will be updated and annotated as more resources become available.

Thank you to Kate McCarthy, graduate student in the MLIS program at Rutgers' School of Communication and Information, for her work on this guide.

QuickSearch

The Rutgers Libraries catalog, known as QuickSearch, is often the best place to begin your research for printed material (books, pamphlets, magazines & journals, newsletters, reports, surveys, newspapers, etc.) The QuickSearch search box can be found on the Special Collections & University Archives homepage and many other Rutgers Libraries pages. There are also detailed instructions for how to conduct a basic search on the SC/UA website under “How to search the library catalog." Once you conduct a broad keyword or subject search, you can limit your search to SC/UA or any other specific libraries by clicking on “Library” on the left side of the page, and selecting a specific library from the drop-down list. 

Special Collections & University Archives website

Under Research Tools and Resources, select “Search Our Collections” for information on the most comprehensive ways to search our holdings, including maps and printed New Jersey items, that are not necessarily findable through QuickSearch. You can also browse finding aids for the Sinclair New Jersey Collection (as well as manuscripts and other archival collections) at http://www2.scc.rutgers.edu/ead/  Finding aids are simply detailed guides that allow researchers to get a sense of and locate materials in a collection of documents. They are used by special collections and archives globally as a standard way to create access to collections.