Frequently Asked Questions

The official denominational website of the Seventh-day Adventist Church is https://www.adventist.org/. If you are looking for the denomination’s news outlet, visit http://news.adventist.org/.

Online translation tools (such as Google Translate, available at https://translate.google.com/) can be used to read this website in your own language.

All current employees can be found by performing a search on the Adventist Yearbook (http://www.adventistyearbook.org/).

The online Adventist Yearbook (https://www.adventistyearbook.org/) is a vast resource with information on the following types of Church entities: General Conference Divisions, Unions, and Conferences; Educational Institutions (excluding primary schools); Food Industries; Healthcare Institutions; Media Centers; Publishing Houses; Radio and TV Stations; and Risk Management.

If you are interested in buying the physical volume published annually, you can find purchasing information on the website by clicking “Order Now”. You can also download the mobile app; learn more about it at https://adventistyearbook.org/electronic.

The online Adventist Directory (https://adventistdirectory.org/) features contact information, locations, and directions for Seventh-day Adventist churches, schools, hospitals, conferences, and other entities. You can also use the official Adventist Locator, found at https://www.adventistlocator.org/, to find these same entities. Please note that most entries in the Directory and the Locator are maintained by those entities, not by the Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research.

Questions about Ellen White should be directed to the Ellen G. White Estate. Their contact information, including a form used to submit questions, is available at https://whiteestate.org/contact/. We also provide links to their suite of websites at https://www.adventistarchives.org/egw-estate.

The Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists, which you can access at https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/, has all sorts of articles on a variety of subjects in Adventist history. Any article would likely be an excellent choice for you to tell at Sabbath School, in the classroom, or from the pulpit.

This information is available for you at https://adventistarchives.org/quick-references. That page also contains, among other things, a useful Quick Statistics sheet, membership statistics, and a list of adult Sabbath School lessons.

The Review (as well as many other periodicals) can be found in our online archives, which you can access by visiting https://documents.adventistarchives.org. The online archives contains millions of pages of downloadable manuscripts, minutes, books, reports, and periodicals pertaining to the Adventist Church, and it serves as the repository for almost all the major periodicals in English. We have even begun adding materials in other languages.

Our Adventist Statistics page features a wealth of readily available statistical information about the Seventh-day Adventist denomination; the information can be viewed online or downloaded as Excel spreadsheets at https://www.adventiststatistics.org/. You may also want to check out the Annual Statistical Report, available at in the online archives under “Statistics”.

We do! The Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research (ASTR) conducts qualitative and quantitative research on, and informs church leaders, members, and scholars about, the ministry, mission, and administration of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. You can find resources related to that research on this site at https://www.adventistarchives.org/human-subject-research or on the Adventist Research site at https://www.adventistresearch.info/.

You can find links to our social media at https://adventistarchives.org/astr-social-media. We have accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. We also operate the Seventh-day Adventist History Twitter account and oversee the Twitter account for the Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists.

You can find such material at https://adventistarchives.org/ordination.

We publish Telling the Story quarterly (focuses on the work ASTR does); Research Newsletter biweekly (focuses on human-subject research and links to blogs on https://www.adventistresearch.info/); and the Journal of Adventist Archives yearly (peer-reviewed articles on Adventist history and sources).

We also produce the General Conference Archives Monograph Series, which can be purchased via Amazon.

Visit https://adventistarchives.org/archivespublications for links to the newsletter and the journal as well as links for purchasing the books in the monograph series.

You can join the Telling the Story newsletter email list by filling out and submitting the form at https://bit.ly/2VkbSzY.

To sign up for the Research Newsletter, visit the landing page of the newsletter on the Adventist Research website (https://www.adventistresearch.info/astr-research-newsletter/) and click on “here” after it says “If you would like to receive this newsletter”.

We do not charge for the digital-only Journal of Adventist Archives (JAA). If you have signed up for our quarterly newsletter, you will automatically learn when each issue of the JAA appears, as it will be mentioned in the newsletter. You can find the JAA at https://bit.ly/3W4xkY3.

However, we do welcome donations for support of the JAA. Donations can be made through this page, https://www.adventistarchives.org/donate.

All of the Seventh-day Adventist Yearbooks, save for the current one (which can be ordered from the Adventist Yearbook website), are in the online archives. When the current Yearbook becomes a historic Yearbook, its PDF is uploaded to the online archives.

A gap does exist in the Yearbooks from 1895 to 1903, but that is because the Church did not publish a Yearbook during those years. We cannot digitize that which does not exist. However, in that time period, the Church published the information typically found in the Yearbook in the Review and in a periodical called the General Conference Bulletin.

Search for your subject on the online archives website (https://documents.adventistarchives.org/) by simply typing the word(s) into the bar that reads “Search All Categories” and click on the results. You can do a narrower search by clicking on “Periodicals”, “Minutes”, or “Books” first, and then doing a search in the same way. You can also filter your search results by using the options of decades and years on the right side of the results page.

First, please check the Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists (https://encyclopedia.adventist.org) to make sure that a history has not already been completed. Second, you can do a general search in our online archives (https://documents.adventistarchives.org), especially in the Periodicals section, for your town or the name of your congregation or school. The periodicals of the union conferences are often very useful for this type of research. See “How do I do a search in your online archives?” if you do not know how to complete a general search in the online archives.

To begin, go to the Seventh-day Adventist Obituary Index (https://libguides.andrews.edu/SDAPI/OBI) and perform a search for your person of interest. Note the publication information for any resulting obituary, and then visit the online archives site to access the periodical (https://documents.adventistarchives.org/Periodicals).

A general search can also be done for the name in the online archives. If the individual you are looking for was in denominational employ, searching for their name in the historic Adventist Yearbooks (which you can access at https://documents.adventistarchives.org/Yearbooks) should yield results for that person’s respective years of employment. See “How do I do a search on your online archives?” if you do not know how to complete a general search in the online archives.

Photographs from Adventist history may be found on the ASTR image collection (http://images.adventistarchives.org/), as well as in the Adventist Digital Library (http://adventistdigitallibrary.org/); the White Estate photo collection (https://ellenwhite.org/media/image-gallery/1); the photo collections at the Center for Adventist Research at Andrews University (https://www.centerforadventistresearch.org/photos/); the Loma Linda University Digital Archive (https://cdm.llu.edu/digital/); as well as at other Adventist university and college libraries, often in their special collections or heritage collections.

If you use a historic image, please make sure to properly note where you found the image, as that will give proper credit to the archives or library which holds the original item, and it help others to find the photo in the future.

Since you know the year and date of the periodical issue you want to see, visit the online archives website (https://documents.adventistarchives.org/) and click on “Periodicals”. Scroll through the list until you see the periodical that you want, and then click on the name of the periodical. Then use the filter on the left side of the page to put the four-digit year into the Doc Year bar and press enter. The issues from that year should appear, and you can easily scroll to the issue from the date that you are looking for by looking at the Date Tag column.

The periodicals are often rich resources for those seeking information for their family history and family tree.

Several reasons exist for the unfortunate moment when you cannot find a periodical or an issue of a periodical in the online archives. First, we may not have yet digitized the periodical in question. Second, even if we have digitized the periodical, we may not have had a physical copy of a certain issue to digitize. Third, we may have simply missed uploading it to the online archives. Statistically speaking, we’re likely to have made mistakes simply due to the number of pages uploaded to the online archives. Please know that we are working hard to identify and fill gaps in the periodicals in the online archives.

One alternative location to check for Adventist periodicals is the Adventist Digital Library (http://adventistdigitallibrary.org/). If neither place has the periodical or the issue you’re looking for, please let us know by sending us an email at [email protected], and we’ll do our best to assist you.

We provide materials related to the preservation of historical materials and records under the Records Management tab, which you can view at https://www.adventistarchives.org/records-management.

A retention schedule is a document that identifies and describes an organization's records, usually at the series level, provides instructions for the disposition of records throughout their life cycle. Essentially, it is the document an organization uses to keep track of what records are kept, for how long, and what to do with them after that. It is a vital tool to good records management, something which ASTR promotes.

Archival accreditation is a quality assurance process through which a record-keeping facility of the Seventh-day Adventist Church can demonstrate that it meets the minimum record-keeping standards and guidelines recommended by the Office of Archives, Statistics and Research (ASTR). ASTR is committed to improving the quality of records management in Adventist Church organizations worldwide, and the accreditation process is part of that commitment.

You can learn more about the benefits of archival accreditation and see the specifications of ASTR’s accreditation process at https://adventistarchives.org/accreditation.

We welcome many varieties of researchers at the Archives! However, since we have limited staff time, it is necessary to get approval for and arrange any visits in advance. To learn how to do that, visit https://www.adventistarchives.org/research-visits.

The simple answer is yes. However, the following gift policy will apply: "Materials donated to the library will be added to the collection on the basis of the same selection criteria outlined for purchased items. No restrictions will be placed on gifts. They will be integrated into the existing collection, and subject to the same weeding and retention policies as purchased items. Donated items not added to the collection will be sent to other entities, sold, donated, or otherwise disposed of at the discretion of the Librarian. The Rebok Memorial Library and Research Center (RMLRC) will not appraise the market value of gifts for tax or for other purposes. Gift books should be delivered to the library at the effort and expense of the donor(s). As a general rule, the RMLRC will not pay for shipping."

Contact our team at [email protected] to find out more.

The simple answer is yes. To read more about how we value donations, look at this page: https://www.adventistarchives.org/donate-items. If you are interested in donating historical materials to the Archives, please email us at [email protected] so we can get the process started.

The simple answer is yes. Information about how to donate money to the Adventist Archives, as well as a donate link, are available at https://adventistarchives.org/donate.