New CD of Baptisms

The Manchester and Lancashire Family History have released their latest CD of Catholic baptisms, this volume contains the following Manchester Catholic registers:

• Corpus Christi, Miles Platting: 1890-1908
• St. Edward, Rusholme: 1862-1908
• St John, Chorlton-cum-Hardy: 1893-1931
• St. Mary, Levenshulme: 1853-1920
• St. Michael, Ancoats: 1877-1917

It is available for the very reasonable price of £4.25 from their Online Bookshop

Newspapers Online

Local newspapers are a valuable source for any family historian, but as any genealogist will   know, sitting at a microfilm reader scrolling through page after page of grainy images to search for relevant information is a long and arduous process.

The British Library have therefore been working for a couple of years on digitising their collections of local newspapers, undertaking OCR (character recognition) and releasing fully searchable copies on to a specially designed website

British Newspaper Archive

For a relatively small monthly subscription (£12.95), you get complete access to more than 700 titles, and nearly 18 million pages, this increases each week as more scanning is completed.

Through this project you can read how newspapers across the county reported on key events from the past 200 years, and can also track down ancestors (particularly if they have had a suitably notorious past to catch the attention of the press).

Catholic History Walks in London

Organised by Catholic History Walks, two Springtime riverside walks along the Thames will be organised in March, starting from the Church of the Most Precious Blood at London Bridge, which is in the care of the Ordinariate. The Walks are on Sunday afternoons, and all are welcome. There is no need to book – just […]

via Catholic History Walks, London, 2017 — English Catholic History Association

Digitising Newman

The project to digitise and catalogue onto an online hub the entire personal archive of Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman is now underway.

Every single letter and diary has been meticulously scanned at John Rylands’ Library, Manchester, and an internet kiosk has been designed by software company Crivella West Inc. of Pittsburgh.

The kiosk project is the first of its kind and when completed will provide complete online access to the Newman collection. It is hoped that it might lead the way to other projects particularly within the world of Catholic archives.

The project is a collaborative effort between the National Institute of Newman Studies, attached to the Pittsburgh Oratory in America, and the Birmingham Oratory where the archives are held.

The Newman Institute is a purpose built residential research library and centre providing previously unprecedented
access to Newman’s life and works, the Institute also fosters the advancement of Newman scholarly research by inviting scholars to utilise the resources of the Newman Research Library in order to pursue academic work specifically related to Newman Studies, and in partnership with Duqesne University has set up scholarship programmes to this end.

To keep up to date with progress, follow the Newman Institute on Twitter @NewmanStudies

Or visit their website

 

 

 

History of Religious Women – Conference

2017 Seminar

2017 Seminar on Records with launch of names database

This Society is planning the launch of a major new electronic database with a paper delivered by Br. Rory G Higgins FSC of Australia at a seminar on Saturday 7 October 2017 in the Conference Rooms, 24 Tufton Street London SW1P 3RB 10am-4pm.

An Index to the Names and Details of over
250,000 Catholics and their Friends in England 1680 – 1840

Rory Higgins has spent many years compiling this work with support from the Catholic Family History Society, his Superiors and others. The database will be a hugely valuable resource for church, social, political, local and family historians, both in England and around the world. On it are men, women and children from all walks of life, including priests and foreigners living in England. Where available there are details of age, of occupation and of location. References guide the user to the many sources which he has trawled, both original and printed, in order to collect the information together into this database. His earlier successful database is the Australian Nuns Index. Individuals and representatives of organisations involved in records and archives, as well as historians of all interests, will find his latest database to be the research tool everyone has been waiting for.

We hope you will not miss this opportunity to be amongst the first to explore the potential of this new resource. To express your interest and reserve a place contact: cfhsrecords@gmail.com. Places are being snapped up!

The period 1680-1840 covers the centuries when Catholicism was effectively outlawed. Records of Catholics are scattered in civil record offices, in Catholic and in Anglican Church archives throughout the country. We are pleased to have William D. Shannon, PhD, to speak on his research in in this era under the title:

Using the Records of the Forfeited Estates Commission (1715-1724) at TNA
to reconstruct Catholic Lancashire before and after the First Jacobite Rebellion.

Dr Shannon has delved into the fate of the Catholics involved in the 1715 Battle of Preston, not just those executed, imprisoned or exiled, but also those less directly involved.

Philip Gale will arrange a presentation on the development of The National Archives finding aid Discovery, with particular reference to Catholic records.