Guide to the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations Secretaries' Files: Guatemala Mission

Numbering of folders within this RG begins with 1 at the beginning of each series rather than each box, creating multiple folders with the same numbers within a box. The researcher must therefore specify the series, not just the box and folder number, when requesting materials.

The researcher should be advised that part of the collection, from about 1960 onward, contains a great deal of material in Spanish, relatively little of which has been translated.

Before 1940, the BFM used a classification scheme for its records. The researcher will see hyphenated numbers on the documents in the collection. The following is a guide to the numbers after the hyphen:

1. Minutes, estimates, appropriations
2. Reports--station, educational, narrative, etc.
3. Correspondence with those who were not regular missionaries
4. Cables
5. Letters from the BFM to the various missions (numbered)
6. Correspondence with mission secretary
7. Personal labor reports
8. Statistical summaries
9. Property
10. Correspondence with mission personnel. At times each correspondent was given a number so the numbers continued beyond 11.

Collection processed: 1982
Robert Goldstein and Frederick J. Heuser, Jr., Assistant Archivist

Finding Aid prepared: 1982
Frederick J. Heuser, Jr., Assistant Archivist

Finding aid revised: May 1992
Stephanie Muntone, Processing Archivist

Collection guide revised in December 2025 by Reparative Description Committee staff to enhance description and incorporate feedback from a PHS research fellow, specifically regarding Indigenous peoples of Guatemala. During that revision, description was changed in Collection Overview, Related Material, Catalog Headings, and Collection Inventory. Local subject headings were added to replace some Library of Congress Subject Headings in the Catalog Headings. Specifically, uses of "Indians" have been replaced with "Indigenous peoples" in headings. Headings for specific Indigenous peoples/tribes have been formed using the National Museum of the American Indian Culture Thesaurus (NMAICT). A content warning note was added to the Collection Overview and Collection Inventory, and additional description was added to specific folder titles in the Collection Inventory.

This collection guide contains original creator-supplied titles in the Collection Inventory. Additional description to supplement folder titles is enclosed in brackets. Original folder titles may include outdated and/or harmful descriptive language. Original folder titles have been maintained to preserve the original context of how the creator labeled their files.

Additional reparative work will be done in the future to address other outdated and harmful language in this collection guide.

Previous versions of this collection guide are available. Please contact the Presbyterian Historical Society for details.