Archives, Statistics, and Research, Office of

The Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research (ASTR) is an office of the General Conference (GC) of Seventh-day Adventists. While it was founded in 1975 as the Office of Archives and Statistics, ASTR is the successor to the Statistical Secretary’s Office (or department) which was established in 1904. This article covers the full history. ASTR’s current roles include managing the archives and records management program of the GC, collecting and publishing crucial organizational information and statistics, and supporting the research and analysis needs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s World Headquarters, particularly strategic planning and executive decision-making by the General Conference officers. ASTR is also responsible for the production of the Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. A secondary but important role is supporting scholarship and Church researchers throughout the world. Those who are interested in Adventist history and Adventist studies may make use of the General Conference Archives and the Rebok Memorial Library, both of which come under ASTR.

Early Recordkeeping

Statistics were compiled and reported by Seventh-day Adventists from an early stage. Immediately after the founding General Conference Session in 1863, a session of the Michigan Conference was also held at which a statistical report about the Conference, its local churches, and membership, was given.¹ This points to the interest in statistics from even before the denomination was formally organized. At the fourth GC Session in May 1866, the Session voted as follows:

That the delegates from each state conference should . . . furnish to the General Conference the statistics of their respective conferences; and [that] the secretaries of the several conferences . . . furnish the delegates of their own conferences, such statistics, specifying the number of ministers and licentiates, the number of churches, the number of the membership, and the total amount of their systematic benevolence fund, etc.²

The Michigan Conference, which again had its session immediately after the General Conference, promptly embodied the need for this report in its constitution.³ And at the next year’s fifth Session, in May 1867, the first annual statistical report was duly presented by Secretary Uriah Smith.⁴ At every annual GC Session thereafter a statistical report was presented by the secretary. By the early 1900s, (by which time GC Sessions had become biennial) a report was given at each year’s Autumn Council, today known as Annual Council, given by the statistical secretary (see below). Thus, starting in 1867 an annual report has been presented to a representative body of the Church and published by the Church, initially in the Church’s paper, the Review & Herald, later in the General Conference Bulletin, and, since 1907, as a standalone publication.

Information about how record-keeping was done prior to the 1901 structural re-organization of the Church is relatively thin. Records were kept in the General Conference headquarters as well in the offices of the Review and Herald Publishing Association.⁵ How the GC files were kept in distinction from the publishing association’s files is unknown, though based on his positions as Review editor and GC secretary, Uriah Smith certainly had a role in how the files were kept.

In 1901 Church leaders recognized the need to reorganize the Church’s organizational structure. They also recognized the need for well-compiled and maintained statistics, and for that they turned to H. Edson Rogers. He had clerked at the General Conference headquarters since January 1889, and had been the “statistical clerk” and clerk of the General Conference Committee since April 1901.

In 1904, at the age of 36, Church leadership appointed Rogers as the Church’s first statistical secretary, and the post was made permanent in June 1905.⁶ Rogers’ establishment of the Statistical Office laid the foundation for the work done by its successor offices. Indeed, Rogers inaugurated two serial publications of the Seventh-day Adventist Church: The Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook (an earlier version of which had been published from 1883 through 1894 and which was revived by him) and the Annual Statistical Report, whose publication as a separate volume was evidently Rogers’s brainchild.⁷ What Rogers added to the GC Secretariat was formally recognized in an action taken by the 1913 GC Session, which amended the constitution to add to the secretary’s formal duties: “to collect such statistics and other facts from division, union, and local conferences and missions, as may be desired by the conference or the executive committee.”⁸

While the role of General Conference archivist would not be created until 1973, Edson Rogers was already evidently exercising some responsibilities in the realm of archives and records management in 1904. Such responsibilities probably arose from Rogers’s role as head of the stenographic staff for taking minutes at the biennial General Conference Sessions. In 1904 the GC headquarters was in the process of transferring from Battle Creek, Michigan, to Takoma Park, which straddles the District of Columbia and Maryland. Rogers wrote to Clarence C. Crisler, another of the headquarters staff, who was traveling from Takoma Park back to Battle Creek, asking him “to secure some matters from the vault.” Rogers continued: “You wished me to tell you where to look. . . . You will find things quite readily, I believe. The Secretary’s files are on the South side of the vault, beginning at the east end; the President’s on the north side.” He noted that: “You will find the year books at the west end of the vault.” Rogers suggested to Crisler “that you secure some large envelopes, and when you take any letters from a file that you write on the envelope the number of the transfer case, and whether from the President’s or the Secretary’s file.” Evidently there was some order and Rogers wished to preserve it. The extent to which the GC was administratively intertwined with the Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association (soon to be renamed the Review & Herald Publishing Association) is revealed by Rogers’s comment to Crisler, à propos of the publishing house: “The General Conference file of papers is in that hall back of the Retail store.” He concluded: “Anything that belongs to the General Conference look over, and bring with you anything you will need here.”⁹

Rogers’s varied and important role in managing stenographic reporting of GC Sessions; collection, analysis, and publication of statistics; and managing official records, was acknowledged when the 1922 GC Session made the statistical secretary an ex officio member of the General Conference Committee. In moving the amendment to the constitution that this move required, Secretary William Spicer, with typical warmth, affirmed his longstanding colleague, Rogers: “We have but one Statistical Secretary in the denomination.”¹⁰ Rogers was statistical secretary for a remarkable 37 years, retiring in 1941.

Development of the Archives

Serious consideration began to be given to establishing a separate General Conference archives after World War II. In the spring of 1946, the General Conference Officers voted:

To recommend that a Department of Archives be established to properly look after our legal documents and obtain copies of all deeds and legal papers from all divisions to be on file here in the General Conference office.¹¹

However, eighteen months later, an officers’ meeting agenda included an item with the title “Central denominational archives depository” and the officers voted to refer a proposal to the Institutional Planning Board.¹² Yet though nothing more was heard for some years of creating a central denominational archives, work was being done on the records of the General Conference, under the direction of Claude Conard, the statistical secretary. In 1953, there was a collection of some kind held in the Statistical Office, for that year the GC Executive Committee voted to “release to the Seminary Library,” not only “The former General Conference Library,” but also what are described, in the action, as: “The collections in the vaults of the Statistical Office, the upper and the lower vaults, according to the ‘Survey and Record’ prepared by Claude Conard under date of February 12, 1950, and [the] card files and lists belonging thereto.”¹³ Some of the listed items were published materials, but the reference to vaults indicates that documents were included.

The 1950s indeed saw renewed discussion of establishing a formal way of protecting Church records. These arose partly arising from Cold War concerns (serious enough to prompt the GC officers in the spring of 1951 to discuss whether to safeguard Church records by storing copies outside Washington, D.C., or by constructing “a bombproof vault” in Takoma Park; they preferred the former.)¹⁴ But there was also a desire to preserve the records themselves, and a recognition of their value. According to minutes of the GC Officers’ Meeting in late 1955, Everett D. Dick, former GC secretary, wrote to the GC officers in his capacity as president of the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary and member of the General Conference Executive Committee,¹⁵ “to suggest that in planning for denominational archives they be planned for in the new Seminary building.” This of course reveals that the concept of founding an archives had been the subject of preliminary discussion. However, at the same Officers Meeting, the minutes tell us that “a number of questions were raised with reference to just what material would be in need of housing.” These questions led to the following decision: “It was Agreed, To hold the matter in abeyance.”¹⁶ This abeyance would last for a decade and a half, though the question of how to preserve and store the Church’s records was a recurrent one. The General Conference officers saw the preservation of the Church’s documentary heritage essential, though at this time they did not see a need for it to be open to scholars engaged in research.¹⁷

While the desire for an archives was growing, the Statistical Office’s leadership and role continued to evolve. When Statistical Secretary Henry W. Klaser was called to be the secretary-treasurer of the Southwestern Union Conference, the GC Executive Committee asked E. Lee Becker, the auditor of the General Conference, to take on the statistical secretary’s duties. Becker presented the statistical report at the 1962 GC Session. After Becker’s report, M. V. Campbell remarked, “Some people consider statistics rather dry, but actually they are history, and history is never dry.”¹⁸ The 1962 GC session also saw the discontinuation of the position of statistical secretary; its duties were combined with that of auditor,¹⁹ and Becker was continued in the position. This combined role only lasted through Becker’s tenure, from 1962 to 1964. Despite its official discontinuation, Becker was still referred to as the “Statistical Secretary” in the Yearbook.²⁰ Robert J. Radcliffe, one of the assistant auditors, succeeded Becker into the dual role in 1964, when Becker left the position.²¹ At the 1966 GC Session, the role of statistical secretary was officially revived and its duties separated from those of the auditor.²² Radcliffe remained as auditor, while Jesse O. Gibson became the new statistical secretary. It was during Gibson’s tenure that the archives portion of the department was formally established, probably due to Gibson’s recognition of the need for organized archives and records management.

Like most administrative decisions at the General Conference, the formal establishment of the Archives in 1973 was a long time in the making. In 1967 Associate Secretary Clyde O. Franz corresponded with a retired associate secretary, Norman W. Dunn, concerning “the records in the General Conference attic that the Committee on Microfilming and Safeguarding of General Conference Records” had asked Dunn “to review.”²³ Such initiatives evidently gave rise to discussion of the specific question of whether there should be a proper archives and records management program at the GC headquarters. This was a matter “under study” by GC administration at least as early as May 1971. The response to a request of the Statistical Department to send someone for further archival training is telling. The officers, after discussion of the matter, voted “To express to the Statistical Department appreciation for what is being done on the matter of archives and records under present unfavorable circumstances.” It is clear, then, that such ad hoc records management as took place in the GC prior to 1973 fell under the aegis of the statistical secretary, as had been the case in the 1950s. The officers further minuted: “The whole subject of General Conference archives and archivists is now under study.”²⁴

Four months later, in September 1971, Associate Secretary David H. Baasch brought an item to the officers, asking for the standing Special Items Committee to “give further study to headquarters archive materials” and “offer suggestions about personnel, financing, space, etc.,” to the Officers.²⁵ While the Special Items Committee was giving the matter further study, strides were being made by Adventist scholars to promote the study of the Church’s history, which necessitated archives and records management. On December 28, 1972, a group of thirteen Adventist historians in attendance at the meeting of the American Historical Association held their own meeting alongside it; they listened to Arthur L. White, secretary of the Ellen G. White Estate, describe church recordkeeping at the headquarters and relay his “long-standing belief” that “more effective” recordkeeping was needed. At this meeting, the historians voted to form the Association of Seventh-day Adventist Historians (ASDAH) and “endorsed a document urging the General Conference to establish a records management program and archival organization” at the headquarters. The historians also voted to request the General Conference to establish an archives and allow scholars to research in it. Arthur White was a conduit for this request to church leaders.²⁶ It is widely thought that this endorsement is what directly led to the creation of the General Conference Archives,²⁷ but as we have seen, the matter was already under consideration by Church leadership. What may well be the case, however, is that White presented the case for access by scholars, for whereas there is no evidence in minutes for any plan to allow external use of a future GC Archives, in the end the Archives did so from the beginning.

In January 1973, the Officers received a report from the Special Items Committee, whose terms of reference had been narrowed a little, to “give study to the subject of headquarters archives material and the need for an archivist at headquarters.”²⁸ Its suggestion was to create another committee, noting: “It is felt this responsibility should be transferred to an ad hoc committee, with the suggestion that recommendations be made for the care of correspondence and denominational records and that an archivist for the General Conference be favorably considered.” In response, the Officers appointed an ad hoc Archives-Archivist Committee, chaired by Willis J. Hackett, a GC general vice president, with Baasch as committee secretary, and three other members: C. O. Franz (by this time General Conference secretary), M. E. Kemmerer (undertreasurer), and A. L. White (White Estate).²⁹ This high-powered membership, along with the terms of reference given by the Officers, signaled that the committee’s real role was not to discuss whether there should be an archivist, but to decide what an archivist’s responsibilities would be, to identify how to fund the position, and who should be appointed to the sensitive post.

Whether Arthur White, at the instance of the newly formed historians’ association, used his considerable influence with “the brethren” at the GC to fast track the creation of the General Conference Archives or to ensure historians had access to it is uncertain. The former is a tradition maintained by ASDAH. Yet as well as ignoring the committee work that was in progress, the tradition underplays the influence that several of the historians had at the Church’s headquarters. At least two founding members of ASDAH, Jerome Clark and Godfrey T. Anderson, were members of the “Denominational History Textbook Planning Committee,” an ad hoc committee which was appointed in March 1973, met June 18-21, 1973, and made recommendations to PRADCO (President’s Administrative Council).³⁰ Part of what the committee discussed were: “Problems connected with source materials and archives.”³¹ Clearly there were ongoing discussions between the Church’s scholars and its administrators about the need for an official archives and what that would look like.

The major step forward came in April 1973, when the Archives-Archivist Committee appointed by the GC Officers in January presented to the 1973 Spring Meeting of the GC Executive Committee a “report on the need within our church for an archivist here at the headquarters office.” It asked for the appointment of an archivist, observing: “This service will be of great value in caring for our documents and records, et cetera, that have historical and cultural value to the church.” The Executive Committee voted to hire “one archivist and a secretary to the archivist up to 1975” while stating that other matters would continue to be studied.³² The Archives-Archivist Committee continued its work, including reaching out in the spring of 1973 to F. Donald Yost, then editor of Insight, who was visited by Willis J. Hackett, and told of plans to create an archive—and asked whether he would be interested in the position of archivist.³³ Yost was formally called to the position on June 6, 1973,³⁴ and he started the new position on July 1, 1973. ³⁵

Between 1956 and 1973, a paradigm shift had happened: the “significant and valuable materials” related to the Church’s history would both be properly preserved and made available for research.³⁶ This is emphasized by at least one of the guidelines formed by Yost for the new position of archivist: “That he supervise the research possibilities of the archives, screen those who request access to the materials, and assist researchers in their work.”³⁷

From an early stage there was an intention to merge the Archives with the Statistical Office, though this required a constitutional amendment and thus had to wait on the 1975 GC Session. In mid-June 1973, a special ad hoc Committee on Organization and Decision Marking met; one of its recommendations was the first “organizational chart for the General Conference,” which included an Archives and Statistical Department; this department would report to the secretary.³⁸ In mid-July 1973, the recently created ADCOM (GC Administrative Committee) and PRADCO acted to create an Archives Committee, with Secretary Franz as Chair (the members of the Statistics–Yearbook Committee were appointed also to serve as an Archives Committee, but it was to be a separate committee; whereas Jesse Gibson, statistical secretary, was secretary of the Statistics–Yearbook Committee, Yost was secretary of the Archives Committee).³⁹ A week later, the GC Executive Committee voted to “reconstitute and rename the Statistical-Yearbook Committee to include the work of the General Conference archivist.”⁴⁰ This foreshadowed what took place in Vienna at the 52nd GC Session, when the GC Archives and the Statistical Office were officially merged into a new entity, entitled Archives and Statistics, with its director replacing the statistical secretary in the GC Constitution.⁴¹ F. Donald Yost, the archivist, was elected to succeed the retiring statistical secretary, Jesse O. Gibson, and became the first Director of Archives and Statistics.⁴²

After 1975

Since that time, the Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook, Annual Statistical Report, general statistical collection, and the Archives have been under one office. However, it continued, like the Statistical Office that preceded it, to be under the GC secretary and thus, in effect, a part of the GC Secretariat. The department remained in this configuration under its next two directors, R. William Cash (1995-1998) and Bert Haloviak (1998-2010). The two directors oversaw technological innovation; the “Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook on disc” was introduced in 1998 and in the early 2000s a Yearbook database was developed which became the basis both for the publication of the printed book and of a dedicated website (adventistyearbook.org) which made the Yearbook’s contents available far more widely. Soon after, it was followed by websites that presented Church statistics and the Annual Statistical Report (adventiststatistics.org) and 1.75 million pages of digitized historic Adventist publications and documents (documents.adventistarchives.org).

At Annual Council 2010, David Trim was appointed as director of Archives and Statistics, succeeding Haloviak.⁴³ In June 2011, after a decision by the three GC executive officers to expand the scope of the Office of Archives and Statistics, it was formally renamed the Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research.⁴⁴ This was subsequently formalized by an amendment to the GC Constitution at the sixtieth GC Session in 2015.⁴⁵ It was also at the 2015 Session that the Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists project was officially launched.⁴⁶

The addition of “research” was due to Church officers’ desire for social-scientific, human-subject research to be done, measuring and gathering information on church members’ demographics, attitudes, spiritual-life practices, and beliefs. Since 2011, ASTR has conducted two global church-member surveys, a global survey of pastors, two studies of lapsed or former church members, a major study of tithing in conferences on five continents, and two surveys of administrators at union, division, and GC level. A major survey of church institutional employees, a third global church-member, and a second pastors’ survey were in progress as of 2022. It has also undertaken evaluations of several major denominational ministries or programs, including Adventist Review (twice), Adventist World, Adventist World Radio, and the Hope Channel, all of which were based on large-scale research projects into the attitudes of readers, viewers, and listeners around the world.⁴⁷ A partnership with Avondale Academic Press led to the creation of a book series, “ASTR Research Monographs,” which publishes findings from or related to the research that ASTR sponsors, undertakes, and coordinates. In 2021, ASTR began publishing a series of short books, the “Adventist Research” series, which presented in largely graphic form, with some commentary, results from the most recent global church-member survey.

However, the “R” for “research” in ASTR came to mean more than human-subject research; ASTR undertook a number of historical research projects for the GC officers. These include: the history of Adventist mission in the Middle East, and in China; the development of officers’ councils; changing concepts of conference and union conference status; and the history of the church’s missionary enterprise and in particular the role therein of GC Secretariat. The last of these studies was developed substantially and published in 2021 as the first book in a new series: General Conference Archives Monographs.⁴⁸

Even as its role expanded, ASTR also found new ways of delivering traditional obligations. In 2017 a new scheme of accreditation for archives and records centers, both at administrative headquarters and at denominational higher education institutions, was introduced, in order to introduce benchmarks and raise standards. The first archives, at Newbold College (which included the Trans-European Division’s historic archive) was accredited in 2018. Before the COVID-19 pandemic intervened, three more archives centers at Adventist universities and colleges were accredited and two division records centers.

While the title of the department has changed and the responsibilities expanded, the Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research still holds true to the legacy laid down by H. E. Rogers and his successors in the years following 1904. Compiling, analyzing, and publishing statistics; preserving, managing, and facilitating access to records; conducting historical and human-subject research; and organizing the Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists—all this and more is done to make sure that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is able to remember its past history, evaluate its present, and plan for its future.

Statistical Secretaries and Archives Directors

Name	Title	Tenure
H. Edson Rogers	Statistical Secretary	1903-1941
Claude Conard	Statistical Secretary	1941-1950
E. J. Johanson	Statistical Secretary	1950-1952
H. W. Klaser	Statistical Secretary	1952-1962
E. Lee Becker	Statistical Secretary / Auditor	1962-1965
Robert J. Radcliffe	Statistical Secretary / Auditor	1965-1966
Jesse O. Gibson	Statistical Secretary	1966-1975
F. Donald Yost	Archivist; Director of Archives and Statistics	1973-1975; 1975-1995
R. William Cash	Director of Archives and Statistics	1995-1998
Bert B. Haloviak	Director of Archives and Statistics	1998-2010
David Trim	Director of Archives and Statistics; Director of Archives, Statistics, and Research	2010-2011; 2011–.

Sources

Amendments to the GC Constitution: 52nd Session, 14th and 15th meetings, 9:15am and 3pm, July 17, 1975, proceedings in ARH, 152:37, General Conference Bulletin no. 9 (July 31, 1975).

“Business Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Session of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.” ARH, May 28, 1867.

Chism, A. L., D. J. B. Trim, and M. F. Younker. “We aim at nothing less than the whole world”: The Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Missionary Enterprise and the General Conference Secretariat, 1863–2019. General Conference Archives Monographs, 1. Silver Spring, MD: Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research, 2021.

Fortieth Session (1922), 26th meeting, May 28, p.m. In “Twenty-Sixth Meeting.” ARH, 99:29, “General Conference Special,” no. 9 (June 22, 1922).

“Fourth Annual Session of General Conference.” ARH, May 22, 1866.

[Gary Land and Brian Strayer]. “About ASDAH.” http://www.sdahistorians.org/about-us.html.

General Conference Committee [hereafter GCC], June 5, 1905, GCC Proceedings, vol. vii.

General Conference Officers’ Meeting [hereafter GCOM], relevant dates, GCOM Minutes.

GC ADCOM meeting, relevant dates. ADCOM minutes.

“Guidelines for the GC Archivist,” undated (one page, numbered p. A), filed with ADCOM minutes, following p. 73–152; received by PRADCO, Nov. 7, 1973, PRADCO Minutes, p. 73–71, and approved by the Executive Committee on November 8, 1973, GCC Minutes, p. 73–1866.

“Harvey Edson Rogers.” The Student’s Journal, 26:6 (June 1897).

“Harvey Edson Rogers” (obit.) ARH, March 25, 1943.

McAdams, D. R. “Southwestern Union.” ARH, February 15, 1973.

“Our List and Files.” ARH, January 6, 1903.

“Proceedings of the General Conference.” Sixth Business Meeting, June 20, 1966, ARH, June 21, 1966.

“Proceedings of the General Conference.” Third Business Meeting, July 27, 1962, ARH, July 30, 1962.

Rebok Memorial Library, Special Collections, MS 1.

Rogers to C. C. Crisler, July 8, 1904, “Outgoing letterbook of the statistical secretary, 1901-1905.” General Conference Archives [GC Ar.], item O 390, RG 29, box O 386–390.

Secretariat General Correspondence, GC Ar., box 10563, fld. “1967 General Correspondence D.”

“Sixth Annual Meeting of the Michigan State Conference.” ARH, May 22, 1866.

Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia. Second revised edition. Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1996.

Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook, various years. https://www.adventistyearbook.org/.

“State of the Cause in Michigan.” ARH, June 2, 1863.

Stele, Galina and D. J. B. Trim. “ASTR, AHSRA, and New Horizons for Adventist Human-Subject Research.” In Petr Činčala (ed.), A Fresh Look at Denominational Research: Role, Impact, and Scope (Lincoln, NE: AdventSource, for Institute of Church Ministry, 2018.

Thirteenth Business meeting, General Conference Session transcript, July 9, 2015. Accessed March 24, 2022 at https://documents.adventistarchives.org/Minutes/GCSM/2015/GCST20150709AM.pdf.

Thirty-Eighth Session (1913), 14th meeting, May 22, 2:30 p.m. In General Conference Bulletin, May 23, 1913.

Yost, F. Donald. “How God Prepared Me to Become an Archivist.” Unpublished typescript, April 17, 2013, in Rebok Memorial Library MS Collection no. 2.

Notes

1. “State of the Cause in Michigan,” ARH, June 2, 1863, 5-7.↩

2. “Fourth Annual Session of General Conference,” ARH, May 22, 1866, 196.↩

3. “Sixth Annual Meeting of the Michigan State Conference,” ARH, May 22, 1866, 197.↩

4. “Business Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Session of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists,” ARH, May 28, 1867, 283.↩

5. “Our List and Files,” ARH, January 6, 1903, 16.↩

6. General Conference Committee [hereafter GCC], June 5, 1905, GCC Proceedings, vol. vii, p. 24; Yearbook 1904, p. 11. See anon., “Harvey Edson Rogers,” The Student’s Journal, 26:6 (June 1897), 7; “Rogers, Harvey Edson” and “Statistical Secretary,” Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia, vol. ii, pp. 467, 702; cf. “Harvey Edson Rogers” (obit.), ARH, March 25, 1943, 19. Rogers’s appointment as Clerk of the General Conference Committee [GCC] was voted by the committee on Apr. 19, 1901, GCC Proceedings, vol. v, pp. 2–3. See also A. L. Chism, D. J. B. Trim, and M. F. Younker, “We aim at nothing less than the whole world”: The Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Missionary Enterprise and the General Conference Secretariat, 1863–2019, General Conference Archives Monographs, 1 (Silver Spring, MD: Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research, 2021), 160–61.↩

7. Rebok Memorial Library, Special Collections, MS 1, unpaginated.↩

8. Thirty-Eighth Session (1913), 14th meeting, May 22, 2:30 p.m., in General Conference Bulletin, May 23, 1913, 111.↩

9. Rogers to C. C. Crisler, July 8, 1904, “Outgoing letterbook of the statistical secretary, 1901-1905,” General Conference Archives [GC Ar.], item O 390, RG 29, box O 386–390 (capitalization as in the original).↩

10. Fortieth Session (1922), 26th meeting, May 28, p.m., in “Twenty-Sixth Meeting,” ARH, 99:29, “General Conference Special,” no. 9 (June 22, 1922): 30 (capitalization as in the original).↩

11. General Conference Officers’ Meeting [hereafter GCOM], March 24, 1946, GCOM Minutes, 2nd series, p. 6375.↩

12. GCOM, Oct. 19, 1947, GCOM Minutes, p. 47–293.↩

13. GCC Meeting, Jan. 22, 1953, GCC Minutes, vol. xviii, p. 1061. Since the Seminary Library was transferred to Andrews University, we strongly suspect that some of the collections at the Center for Adventist Research originally came from the materials collected by Rogers and Conard.↩

14. GCOM 1 Apr. 1951, GCOM Minutes, p. 51-85.↩

15. 1956 Yearbook of the Seventh-day Adventist Denomination, 12.↩

16. GCOM, Sept. 26, 1955, GCOM Minutes, p. 55–199.↩

17. See, for example, GCOM, Oct. 10, 1955, GCOM Minutes, p. 55–216.↩

18. “Proceedings of the General Conference,” Third Business Meeting, July 27, 1962, ARH, July 30, 1962, 69.↩

19. Ibid., 70. This move was possibly predicated by the “real interest” that Becker had shown for the statistical duties.↩

20. See 1963 Yearbook of the Seventh-day Adventist Denomination, 12, and 1964 Yearbook of the Seventh-day Adventist Denomination, 12.↩

21. GC Executive Committee meeting, November 12, 1964, 10am, in GC Ar., GCC Minutes, p. 900.↩

22. “Proceedings of the General Conference,” Sixth Business Meeting, June 20, 1966, ARH, June 21, 1966, 103.↩

23. Secretariat General Correspondence, GC Ar., box 10563, fld. “1967 General Correspondence D.”↩

24. GCOM, May 19, 1971, GCOM Minutes, p. 71–188.↩

25. GCOM, Sept. 15, 1971, GCOM Minutes, p. 71–330.↩

26. D. R. McAdams, “Southwestern Union,” ARH, February 15, 1973, 23; telephone interview, D. J. B. Trim with D. R. McAdams, March 21, 2022; interview, D. J. B. Trim with F. D. Yost, Augusta, GA, December 16, 2011.↩

27. [Gary Land and Brian Strayer], “About ASDAH,” http://www.sdahistorians.org/about-us.html.↩

28. GCOM, Jan. 3, 1973, GCOM, p. 73–1.↩

29. Ibid.↩

30. GC Executive Committee meeting, March 1, 1973, GCC minutes, p. 73-1402; ADCOM meeting, July 16, 1973, ADCOM Minutes, p. 73–17. The nine pages of the Denominational History Committee minutes are between pp. 73–18 and 73–19 of the ADCOM minutes. Anderson and Clark’s presence at the founding meeting of ASDAH is taken from the Trim interview with McAdams, cited in n. 27.↩

31. Textbook committee minutes, cited above, p. 1.↩

32. GC Executive Committee meeting, Apr. 3, 1973, in GC Ar., GCC Minutes, 73–1487.↩

33. Trim–Yost interview; F. Donald Yost, “How God Prepared Me to Become an Archivist” (unpubl. typescript, April 17, 2013), in Rebok Memorial Library MS Collection no. 2.↩

34. James R. Nix, personal diary, record of conversation with Yost, during which Yost was called by Hackett, shared with the authors.↩

35. Confirmed at GCOM, June 27, 1973, GCOM, 73–254.↩

36. General Conference Communique [in-house newsletter], June 8, 1973, p. 1.↩

37. ADCOM, Nov. 1, 1973, ADCOM Minutes, p. 73–151; “Guidelines for the GC Archivist,” undated (one page, numbered p. A), filed with ADCOM minutes, following p. 73–152; received by PRADCO, Nov. 7, 1973, PRADCO Minutes, p. 73–71, and approved by the Executive Committee on November 8, 1973, GCC Minutes, p. 73–1866.↩

38. Committee on Organization and Decision-Making, Denver, Colo., June 10-14, 1973, p. 1, in GCOM Minutes, following p. 73–240.↩

39. ADCOM, July 12, 1973, ADCOM minutes, p. 73–16; this was a recommendation to PRADCO, which was voted by it at its meeting of July 18, 1973, PRADCO Minutes, p. 73–16.↩

40. GC Executive Committee meeting, 19 July 1973, GCC Minutes, p. 73–1592.↩

41. Amendments to the GC Constitution: 52nd Session, 14th and 15th meetings, 9:15am and 3pm, July 17, 1975, proceedings in ARH, 152:37, General Conference Bulletin no. 9 (July 31, 1975): 31-32, creation of post of Director of Archives and Statistics at p. 32.↩

42. Fifty-Second Session, 13th meeting, July 17, 1975, proceedings in ARH, 152:35, General Conference Bulletin no. 7 (July 18, 1975): 4.↩

43. GC Executive Committee meeting, October 20, 2010, GCC minutes, p. 10–101.↩

44. GC ADCOM meeting, June 14, 2011, ADCOM minutes, pp. 11–156, 157.↩

45. Thirteenth Business meeting, General Conference Session transcript, July 9, 2015, pp. 22–23. Accessed March 24, 2022 at https://documents.adventistarchives.org/Minutes/GCSM/2015/GCST20150709AM.pdf.↩

46. Ibid., 55. Accessed March 24, 2022 at https://documents.adventistarchives.org/Minutes/GCSM/2015/GCST20150709AM.pdf.↩

47. For more on the research done by ASTR see Galina Stele and D. J. B. Trim, “ASTR, AHSRA, and New Horizons for Adventist Human-Subject Research,” in Petr Činčala (ed.), A Fresh Look at Denominational Research: Role, Impact, and Scope (Lincoln, NE: AdventSource, for Institute of Church Ministry, 2018), pp. 55–62; and https://www.adventistresearch.info.↩

48. Chism, Trim, and Younker, Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Missionary Enterprise.↩