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~ Hints and tips for researching your Catholic ancestors in England and Wales

Catholic Family History

Tag Archives: Gandy

Roman Catholic Records Online

31 Sunday Aug 2014

Posted by Lawrence Gregory in Church Records, General Information, Notes and Queries

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Tags

archives, Gandy, registers, useful

A follow-on from the previous post giving more information from Jim Lancaster. The enquirer was asking if there is a list of what is available online.

Sadly there is no such list.  It would a major task that would need someone
to commit themselves solely to it.  Michael Gandy spent several years
compiling his volumes and his task was not as vague.  He compiled a list of
all the missions (no mean feat in itself) then contacted all the parish
priests of those churches to find where their registers were deposited.  Not
all priests responded and he had to contact some several times.  He would
also have contacted the various record offices to check their holdings.  A
comparable listing of on-line registers would be much more difficult, given
the unorganized nature of record transcriptions.

The British Isles have always been seen by Rome as three distinct entities,
no matter what the politics of the day stated.  The Church in Great Britain
is divided into two, England and Wales, and Scotland; and Ireland North and South) as a separate entity.  All three are separate with their own hierarchies, etc.  I have little knowledge of Catholic history in Scotland or Ireland.  A major source for the chronology of the development of Catholic missions in Great Britain is the Catholic Directory, an annual publication. This started in the early 1800s and
covered London initially and developed to cover Great Britain (England,
Wales and Scotland).  The Catholic Directory are now two separate volumes
one for England and Wales and one for Scotland.  Ireland has its own
Directory.

I referred to Gandy’s books because these list all the known chapels and
their registers, IF they exist.  If a register is not listed, there is no
point in looking for it on the internet.  Canon Law requires each parish
priest to maintain his registers in a safe condition.  Most dioceses issue
advice as to how this is done, but the dioceses often differ in this advice
according to their circumstances.  Some dioceses collect the registers no
longer needed for religious purposes into the Diocesan Archives (I think
Northampton is one such) whereas others recommend that the old registers are
deposited in the local County Record Office.  The three Lancashire dioceses
(Liverpool, Salford and Lancaster) have agreed that parishes in Lancashire
use the Lancashire Archives in Preston as the place of safety – except for
parishes in the City of Liverpool and they use the Liverpool Record Office.
Ancestry, FindMyPast, etc., have been active in acquiring access to
deposited registers.  Some of the Diocesan Archivists have agreed to this
and have made transcripts. etc., available to one or more of these groups.
As far as I know there is no listing of these.

At the time civil registration of Births, Marriages, and Deaths commenced in
England (Scotland is different) the Registration Commissioners requested
that non-parochial chapels submit their registers for authentication so
that the information (pre July 1837) could be used in courts of law.  Most
Free Church chapels submitted their registers for authentication, many on
the understanding that the registers would be returned, but very few RC
chapels submitted their registers (I think, mainly from north-east England).
The only Lancashire chapel to submit its registers was Blackburn (St Alban).
The registers were not returned and have eventually found their way into the
National Archives.  They are listed in TNA catalogues as Class RG4.  There
was a repeat request made in 1858 and these registers are in Class RG5 or
RG8, I think.  These deposited registers are now available on both Ancestry
and FMP .

Many local family history societies have transcribed some Catholic registers
but these are not usually available on line as the sale of the transcripts
help to support the FHS.  Some societies are selling information on the
internet through one of the major sites.  Most of these are listed in the
GenGuide site I mentioned in my earlier note.

It must also be remembered that the civil law between 1756 and 1837 required
all marriages to be solemnised in a licensed Anglican church before an
authorised Anglican minister if they were to be recognised in law.  Except
is very rural areas there were no Catholic burial grounds and Catholics were
usually buried in the local Anglican church.  Often the fact that the
persons involved were Catholics (Papists) is not mentioned in the register.

As the various transcribing agencies each has its own aims and agenda, there
is little coordination of the activity.  Even within one team there may not
be a planned program of transcribing.  It usually depends on what the
volunteers can access easily.  As an example, I have attached a listing of
the RC material that is currently available on LancashireOPC.

FamilySearch has a listing of the records it includes.  Searching that list
for a specific church will show if any of its registers have been
transcribed for FamilySearch.

Old Catholic Directories Online

29 Saturday Sep 2012

Posted by Lawrence Gregory in General Information

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

directories google, Gandy, GENUKI, Kelly

A number of old Catholic Directories are available online via Google Books.  Advanced Search (http://books.google.com/advanced_book_search) seems to be the best way to find them. I use the following search terms:

  • Find results with all of the words catholic directory
  • Search full view only
  • Publication date Return content published between 1800 and 1900

Full view means that the whole of the text is available for you to view and you can download the book as PDF to your computer. The search will return directories for all countries and any for any books that contain the words catholic and directory so you will need to check each result to see if it is of interest. So far I have found directories for 1838, 1839, 1840, 1851, 1858, 1859, 1860, and 1869. Note that the directories are sometimes bound together and Google just gives the date of the first one. So 1859 and 1860 are all bound together with the 1858 directory which Google gives wrongly as 1856!

Looking at the 1858 volume (and all other years follow a similar pattern) it shows the missions and churches by diocese and for each details of the various services and a list of serving priests. Here’s the start of the entry for St Anselm’s in London:

Later on there are lists of clergy (with addresses), colleges (including abroad), schools, religious houses and convents, and orphanages. So there is lots of information in these directories that can help the Catholic family historian and since it is available on the web for free it can save a trip to your nearest library.

Ancestors who were priests

24 Monday Sep 2012

Posted by Lawrence Gregory in Clergy, General Information

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Gandy, Kelly, priests

We receive many queries from people asking about how to research ancestors who were thought to have been priests. In this blog entry I will try to describe some useful sources of information.  In the text that follows the sources are given by numbers in brackets and the full citation details are given at the foot of the article.  The first places to look are in English & Welsh Priests (1) and (2) which are simple lists and will help to confirm the basic facts.

Kelly’s Notes on English Catholic Missions (3) which was reprinted (4) and is now available on-line (5) has the names and years, where known, of the priests associated with each mission for years up to 1907, when this work was produced. Of course for this to be of use, you will need to know the missions or churches where your ancestor served.

Many churches have produced histories ranging from books to pamphlets and information is often now available on the web. These will usually have some information about priests who served there. Local newspapers will often contain obituaries, particularly if the priest was well known or had served for many years.

Don’t forget the Catholic Directory published every year gives the priests at each mission or church as this entry from the 1858 edition shows. 

Gandy’s Bibliography (6) has a whole section on the Clergy and gives many more suggestions than I have listed in this article.

Works Cited

1. Bellenger, Dominic Aidan. English & Welsh priests, 1558-1800 : a working list. Bath : Downside Abbey, 1984.

2. Fitzgerald-Lombard, Charles. English & Welsh Priests 1801-1914 : A Working List. Bath : Downside Abbey, 1993.

3. Kelly, Bernard W. Historical Notes on English Catholic Missions. London : Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Ltd., 1907. Reprinted by Michael Gandy 1995.

4. —. Historical Notes on English Catholic Missions. London : Michael Gandy, 1995. with the omission of an introductory essay on the history of Catholicism in England since the Reformation and the addition of an alphabetical index by county.

5. —. Ebook and Texts Archive > Canadian Libraries > University of Toronto – John M. Kelly Library > Historical notes on English Catholic Missions. Internet Archive. [Online] http://archive.org/details/historicalnoteso00kelluoft.

6. Gandy, M. Catholic Family History: A Bibliography Of General Sources. London : Michael Gandy, 1976. ISBN 0 9520535 8 6.

Where are the records?

13 Monday Aug 2012

Posted by Lawrence Gregory in Church Records

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

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.


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

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