German Baptist Brethren Almanacs

The enterprising H. R. Holsinger began a new line of almanacs with his Brethren's Almanac for 1871 (Published in 1870 at Philadelphia, although Holsinger's printshop was located at Tyrone, PA). In an announcement in his paper, The Christian Family Companion, he solicited suggestions and promised that the almanac would "contain history, statistics, doctrine, peculiarities, and incidents."  An important innovations was Holsinger's attempt to compile a current list of Brethren Ministers: this has remained a valuable fixture in the Brethren almanacs and yearbooks.  Although the first edition was "somewhat hastily compiled," as Holsinger admitted, it met with success. he published editions for 1872-74 at Dale City (Meyersdale), PA, before he sold his publishing interest to James Quinter.

  Later in the 1872 H. B. Brumbaugh and his brothers distributed an 1873 edition of a Pilgrim Almanac as a free supplement to their weekly paper.  For the 1875 edition the Brumbaughs, and Quinter combined their almanacs as the Brethren's Family Almanac, published at Huntingdon, Pa.  As various German Baptist Brethren publishing enterprises continued to merge, the Brethren Family Almanac was printed elsewhere: at Mt. Morris, Il, and at Elgin, Il, where the Brethren Publishing House moved in 1899 to take advantage of better rail connections, in 1918 the almanac became the Brethren Yearbook. The year the yearbook is still published, although its title since 1973 reflects its main function since 1918: a Church of the Brethren Directory rather than a general almanac.      

  Other Brethren-related almanacs appeared in 19th century. H. J. Kurtz distributed Our Almanac and Annual Register from Ohio after 1800. The editors of the Brethren at Work issued at least one almanac. H. R. Holsinger started once more after the great division of 1881-1883 with an almanac for members of the Brethren Church. This Brethren Annual (1884ff) shifted from an almanac format to a denominational yearbook during the years 1915-24

The above information was taken from The Brethren Encyclopedia Vol. 2,  page 1086 (copyright 1983)

1881-1882 Record of the Faithful (not a Almanac, but a list of ministers & elders)

1884 Our Almanac and Annual Register

1895 Brethren Family Almanac  Link to Eric L. Blocher web site

1903 Brethren Family Almanac  Link to a Almanac Wayne Webb did.

1900 Brethren Family Almanac  Link to  Eric L. Blocher web site

1909 Brethren Family Almanac
 

Index to Ministers listed in the Brethren Almanac & Brethren Family Almanac

                                                              from1872 to 1890, expect for 1878 & 1879.

Please report any broken links to me at orwahist@aol.com  Dennis Roth

 Some other Brethren links

  as of 06-30-2006