Wisconsin Appointment Archive

Our historic appointment database, which gives information regarding historic appointments in our Conference, is a gift given to our Conference by the late Robert Gruetzmacher.  Bob was a long-time volunteer in the Archives, who responded to the need to answer two questions often asked of the Archives:  Can I get a list of the historic appointments to a local church?  And can I get a list of appointments for a particular pastor?  To answer these two questions, the archivist would need to consult decades of our past historical yearbooks to answer one question—a time-consuming task! So Bob began a project of entering appointments that appeared in a yearbook into a database that could then be searched.  He began with the current yearbook and worked backward in time.  He had completed all the years back to 1903.

Since this database can also be searched online on our website, it has also proved to be a valuable resource for all.  You can search the database here.

To search for a particular pastor’s appointments, enter that person’s name.  If you do not have the precise spelling of the first name, or perhaps only have the initials, a general search with only the last name will give a more comprehensive result.

To search for a particular church’s appointments, begin by entering the city or location of the church.  If the church is from a location, like Milwaukee or Madison, you can refine the search by adding the church’s name after the place name, i.e. Milwaukee: Kenwood (hint, use only one space after the colon).

The data currently entered in the database covers the years 1903-2016.  We hope to be able to have another volunteer work on entering information into this database to continue to keep it updated.