Daily AncestorCommunicant
A communicant was a church member entitled to receive Holy Communion, the Lord's Supper; communicant lists record who took part in a given service or year.
In most churches a person became a communicant only after confirmation or a profession of faith, so a communicant was an adult or older teen in good standing. Today's Episcopal canons count as communicants those who received Communion at least three times in the past year.
Lutheran, Reformed and Moravian congregations in Pennsylvania often kept communicant lists. Read across several years and you can see when a person arrived, married or disappeared.
How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "Communicant." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/church/communicant. Last checked 2026-10-03.