The purpose of this blog is to share hints, tips, and information 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.
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Catholic Family History 
Can anyone help me in finding a catholic marriage in the early 1800s about 1837-9, possibly could of been in st wilfreds church in preston lancashire.
Thank you for any help you may be able to give. I have looked in the lancs record office.
Bernadette Ainsworth
Hi Bernadette, the CFHS has published the registers of St Wilfrid’s Preston and these cover marriages: 1769 – 1803, 1813 – 1829, and 1836 – 1899. You can purchase the DVD from GENFair. Details of all of the society’s publications can be found using the links at the top of this page. Another good place to search is on the Lancashire BMD website. But note that if your marriage is before 1837 then it won’t be here (as that was the start of civil registration) and not all marriages were registered in the early years.
There are records of St Mary’s in SOG London -they give a list of Catholics in town centre around 1800. Hard copy in the upstairs library .