In describing the collections preserved at the PCA Historical Center, we make the following distinctions:

Manuscript Collections (organic) : Sometimes called the "papers" of a given individual, these collections have been received directly from either the creator of the collection, or perhaps from a family member or some other person in direct, lawful possession of that collection. A distinction is made here between collections received organically, that is, from either the creator of the collection or their lawful heirs, versus synthetic collections, which are collections gathered by the staff of the Archives.

Organizational Records : Organizations produce records, while people produce "papers" or manuscript collections. The PCA Historical Center is the official repository for five conservative Presbyterian denominations
and also houses publicly available records for another several Presbyterian denominations.

Synthetic Collections : In archival terminology, a synthetic collection is one gathered from disparate sources; in our case, by the staff of the archives. As such, these are not the papers of these individuals. The synthetic collections preserved here at the Historical Center serve to augment the rest of our collections, thus providing researchers with additional resources. These collections often include items that are available elsewhere, items such as books and other printed materials, though some cases may also include rare or even unique items. Where the actual papers of a given individual reside in another depository, we will cite that archives, when known.

Staff will be working in the coming months to add finding aids (indexes) to each of these collections. All collections are open for use by researchers. Please contact the Historical Center if you need more information about any of these collections.