Latin In Church Records (part 2)

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baptism, latin, registers

I recently posted about Latin used in marriage registers. The good news is that the baptismal registers that I have seen are quite a bit easier to understand as they are in tabular form. The image below is from St. Mary’s in Wigan in 1835 – if you click on it it should expand so that you can see the column headings. These are (with my translation):

1. Tempus Natus – Date of Birth
2. Tempus Baptismatis – Date of Baptism
3. Nomina – Name
4. Filius vel Filia – Son or Daughter
5. Nomina Parentum – Name of Parents
6. Conjugum vel non Conjugum – Married or not married
7. Nomina Patrinorum – Names of the Sponsors
8. A me Misso Apco – I (the) Apostolic Missionary

We have the same abbreviation in the last column that I couldn’t translate in the marriage register. I’m pretty sure now that it means Apostolic Missionary. Parishes were not established until quite late and so the priest would be serving at a mission.

So this type of register is much easier to understand. Note that first names are in Latin and so again there can be uncertainty over James/Jacob etc. Another word that you will see is ‘olim’ in the Nomina Parentum column next to the mother’s name. This word means once and so gives the mother’s maiden name.

In column 4 this priest put a line ‘-‘ to indicate a daughter and in column 6 he put a cross ‘+’ to indicate that the parents were married and a line ‘-‘ if they were not. 

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Scottish Catholic Archives

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archives, Scotland

Some good news via an article in British GENES that the Scottish Catholic Archives might not be closing after all.

1715 List of Roman Catholics in England & Wales

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England, nonjurors, papists, wales

The book entitled The Names of the Roman Catholics, Nonjurors, and Others, who refus’d to take the Oaths to his late Majesty King George is available via Google Books to view online or download as a PDF. It is a list of papists by county with their place of abode and sometimes their occupation. It is a very useful reference if you are searching for recusant ancestors in the early 18th century. Here’s the link to Google Books.

Latin In Church Records

Tags

latin, marriage, registers

As if deciphering old records that were written, you suspect, with watered down ink and a nib that had seen better days was not hard enough, you often have the added complexity of them being written in Latin. It’s not quite as bad as you might imagine because in many cases the priest was just using a standard formula and filling in the blanks. Let’s have a look at an example that I saw in the marriage register for St Mary’s in Wigan, Lancashire:

1846 die decimo octavo menses Maii, null legitimo impedimento detecto, ego Carolus Middlehurst Missus. Apcus. Sancto Maria in oppido Wigan Jacobum Hall filium Georgii et Marie Hall de Staley Bridge et Annam Heaney filiam Nicolai et Judith Heaney de Wigan interrogavi, eorumque mutuo consensus habito, solemniter per verba de praesenti matrimonio conjunxi, praesentibus notis testibus Henrico Baron et Catherine Baron qui uterque habitat Wigan. 

By breaking this into smaller pieces, it is possible to understand what it is saying (with the help of Google Translate and my schoolboy Latin):

1846 die decimo octavo menses Maii The eighteenth day of May 1846 

null legitimo impedimento detecto no lawful impediment was detected

ego Carolus Middlehurst Apcus. Missus. Sancto Maria in oppido Wigan I Charles Middlehurst ? ? St Mary in the town of Wigan

Jacobum Hall filium Georgii et Marie Hall de Staley Bridge et Annam Heaney filiam Nicolai et Judith Heaney de Wigan James Hall, son of George and Mary Hall of Staley Bridge, and Anne, daughter of Nicholas Heaney and Judith Heaney of Wigan

interrogavi, eorumque mutuo consensus habito, solemniter per verba de praesenti matrimonio conjunxi I asked, and having their mutual consent, solemnly united by words of marriage

praesentibus notis  testibus Henrico Baron et Catherine Baron qui uterque habitat Wigan the presence of witnesses Henry Baron and Catherine Baron, who both live in Wigan.

Slightly odd wording but it is clear what is being said. We can see the names of the bride and groom, their parents and where they were from, the names of the witnesses and where they were from. I don’t understand Apcus. Missus., it looks as though both words are abbreviations but it doesn’t seem too important at this point.

When Christian names are written in Latin it is not always clear what the English equivalent is. For example Jacobum (accusative form of Jacobus) can mean Jacob or James, cross checking with census records will resolve this.

It’s a good idea to look through the whole register – if it is a printed register then it might contain an example of the format that the priest was supposed to use, which can be a help when deciphering badly written words.  For the St Mary’s register it also shows the formula to be used for dispensations obtenta per Reverendissimum Dominum A. B. Vicarium Apostolicum hujus Districtus dispensatione ab impedimento primi (vel secundi &c.) gradus consanguinitatis (aut affinitatis seu alio quovis impedimento) which translates as obtained by the Most Reverend Lord A. B., Vicar Apostolic of this district was a dispensation from the impediment of the first (or second etc.) degree of consanguinity (or affinity or any other impediment)

A further example was added to say that when a dispensation was granted by virtue of their missionary faculties the priest was to insert data per me dispensatione ab impedimento… given by me a dispensation from the impediment of…

Where are the records?

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Gandy, registers

A common query that I receive is along the lines of “I am trying to find the whereabouts of the registers for … Church which was named on my great-grandparents’ marriage certificate in November 1887. I am trying to trace the baptisms of their children as I have had difficulties in finding their birth certificates”

For this kind of question I normally first look in Catholic Missions & Registers, 1700-1880 published by Michael Gandy[i]. This is a series of six volumes covering England, Scotland, Wales, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man as follows:

1. London and the Home Counties
2. The Midlands and East Anglia
3. Wales and the West of England
4. North East England (out of print)
5. North West England
6. Scotland (out of print)

My copies of these volumes were published 1993 and the London and the Home Counties volume was revised in 2003. The volumes are arranged by county and there are entries for each mission for which registers are known in order of earliest date. So for example, in Volume 5 in the Lancashire section we find:

1875 RAINFORD, St Helen’s. Corpus Christi. Orig: B1875+ M1877+ Conf1877+ DBur1875+ (PP)

This shows that the original Baptism (B), Marriage (M), Confirmation (Conf), Death and Burial (DBur) records for St Helen’s Church in Rainford exist from the stated years and continue to the present date (+). At the time of writing the records were with the parish priest (PP).

If the records had been copied or moved (perhaps to a diocesan record office, or the county record office) then this would have been shown.

Remembering that the information was published in 1993 it is important to check that nothing has changed and, in this particular case, I would check that the registers have not been deposited with Lancashire Archives who are responsible for the archives of the Roman Catholic dioceses of Lancaster, Liverpool, and Salford.

At this point there are usually three situations:

1) The records exist and have been deposited in a records office or other archive

2) The records exist and are with the parish priest

3) No records exist – either none are known, or they were destroyed, for example in a fire

In future posts I will provide some hints and tips to help with the first two situations.

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[i] Available from Michael Gandy, 140 Hampden Way, Southgate, London, N14 5AX at the price of £6.70 per volume including postage and packing

An advert for the society…

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catholic, Catholic Ancestor, conference, family, history, membership, registers, society

The Catholic Family History Society exists to encourage research into Catholic ancestry. Although especially interested in English and Welsh Catholicism, we also have special interests in Irish, French, Polish and Italian ancestry etc. Anyone who is interested in Catholic ancestry and family history is welcome to join. Members receive Catholic Ancestor, our journal, three times a year. This contains members’ own researches and a wide range of helpful articles. An Annual Day Conference is held in Central London in October.

Volunteers around the country transcribe early Catholic Registers, and these are offered to members when available, in CD-ROM format and may also be available at your local Record Office. Non-members can also purchase these and all past publications.

Visit www.catholic-history.org.uk/cfhs for details of the contents of all past journals and publications and to download a membership application form.

The start of things

I’ve started this blog to share hints and tips on researching Catholic ancestors in England and Wales. As a member of the Catholic Family History Society, many of the requests for help and information come to me. Of course, I can’t answer everything myself and the hard questions I pass on to our very knowledgeable members. Publishing these requests and our answers (suitably anonymised) should be a good way make to this information available to a wider audience.