The reasons for ecclesiastical schisms often seem plainly obvious to participants, but scholars struggle for generations to comprehend their origins. Theological declension, historic cultural or ethnic rivalries, and personality clashes usually enter into these tragedies in varying degrees. Admitting the complexities of such events, it is the obligation of historians to search for underlying patterns of thought and behavior that might illuminate the causes. For Dutch Calvinists in North America, the schism of 1857 within midwestern immigrant congregations of the Reformed Church in America (RCA), out of which the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) emerged, is one of those major turning points that demand continual re-examination. This is now possible because new so urces have become available. Some fifteen years ago, the Committee in the East on Historical Documents of the Christian Reformed Church obtained from public arc hives in the Netherlands copies of the official lists of immigrants for the years 1835-1880. These records include specific biographical information on each fami ly or single ad ult, including occupation, religious affiliation, family status, social class, and place of residence. When these emigration records are linked to the church membership records of the pioneer Reformed congregations in North America (now being collected by the Heritage Hall Archives at Calvin College, Western Theological Seminary, New Brunswick Seminary, and Herrick Public Library in Holland), it is possible to learn much about the Old Country backgrounds of the RCA and CRC churches and to discern possible differences between them. When the Reformed immigrants were forced to make a decision in 1857, or subsequently, to join the seceders or not, their family traditions, life histories, and cultu ral differences, emanating from the Netherlands, invariably provided the context for such decisions.