I think that we often fail to appreciate Catholic registers in genealogical
research. It’s so easy to be in a hurry to find what you want that the really
good things are missed altogether. I want to share some of the strategies and
logic that I have used over the years.
Types of
Records
Catholic records, whether in Ireland or in the immigrant country,
usually consist of baptisms and marriages. Burial is not a sacrament in the
Catholic church so a parish did not have to keep burial registers. I believe one
of the most important pieces of information that can be derived from a baptism
or marriage record is the names of the godparents at a christening and witnesses
at a marriage. In theory they are people the family know and trust so they may
be family members or friends from Ireland. For immigration purposes if you can’t
find out where in Ireland your ancestor was from, research the lives of the
godparents or witnesses.
Often marriage registers will list parents’
names and place of birth. If a priest recorded this information, it may solve a
very difficult immigration problem. Burials, when kept, are also a source of
immigrant origins. If the records give county of birth in Ireland, make sure to
look at all entries (not just your surname) to see if a high percentage of them
are coming from a particular county.
If you’re using Irish records, the
godparents and witnesses names found can be utilized as an immigrant resource.
By this I mean that if you think you have found your ancestor in an Irish church
record, now you have to prove it. You can take the godparents and witnesses’
names from the register to see if this cluster of families settled where your
ancestor did. This may be the only way to determine if that person in the Irish
record is really your ancestor. Often, I will write to a heritage centre in
Ireland and they will apologize for finding five people in the county with the
same name and they don’t know which is the correct entry. To me this is a
blessing as I can now take the godparents names from these five christenings and
continue with my immigrant research. I then write back to the heritage centre to
request that they send me the siblings’ names and godparents’ names for those
five families.
Another type of record that is often overlooked are
dispensations. When a couple wanted to be married by a Catholic priest, but a
question arose, it goes before the bishop of the diocese for his consideration.
The resulting record can be really good as it will frequently give parents’
names and birth places for the couple. Dispensations are usually kept at the
diocese. However, there should be a notation in the local parish register that a
dispensation was granted. Dispensations were granted for any number of reasons.
A few reasons are as follows:
- A Catholic marrying an unbaptized person.
- The couple were related to one another.
- One or both of the couple were minors.
- If it can be proven that the marriage will insure that the children will be
raised Catholic.
- A couple’s relationship was already known as notorious or that it will
become so.
- The scandal or loss of reputation due to pregnancy or to prevent conduct
short of intercourse which can be prevented only by marriage.
- That the marriage provides for the welfare of the child and also of the
mother lest she remain unwed.
- The most common reason for a dispensation would probably be something as
simple as the banns were not read the proper amount of times in church.
What If Your Ancestors Aren’t Found
What if you don’t find your
ancestor listed in a church register? The problem can range from only part of a
couple’s children being listed in the christening records to none of them being
listed. If you already know where your ancestors lived, then I would suggest the
following course:
- Maybe your ancestors had their family events recorded in a neighboring
parish. This will especially be true if your ancestral parish was originally a
mission of another parish.
- On the frontier of America and Canada prior to the arrival of priests
families may have been baptized and married by a Protestant minister or married
by a civil official. This is more common than some would like to believe.
- When you’re looking in Irish records for an ancestor, it’s important to
remember that in many parts of rural Ireland the people did not “go to church”
in the sense that they do today. The priest went out into the townlands where he
held Mass, married couples and baptized children. The priests did not take the
registers with them into the townlands. They wrote the information down (in
theory) and added to the parish register periodically (again in theory). This
did not always happen. The Heritage Centre in County Clare estimates that some
30% of the population who should be in the registers are not.
- Often the Catholic records in Ireland or in North America simply do not
start early enough. Again, it may be that a traveling priest took his notes back
to the main church or cathedral he was serving from. Then again, sometimes we’ll
never know.
- I have found when a Catholic marries a non-Catholic, the marriage usually
occurred in a non-Catholic church while the children were baptized and raised
Catholic. Also, this may be the first clue in family research that one of the
spouses was not from a Catholic family. It is common to see throughout church
records where a spouse converts to Catholicism.
When You’re Desperate
I have been known to go through the same
Catholic record two or three times. Although this may sound extreme it really
isn’t. If one strategy fails, that’s okay, go on to the next one. My desperation
strategy is to take a particular time fame and conduct the following in-depth
analysis:
- Look for all persons in the records for a 10 or 15 year time frame with the
same surname as your ancestors (maiden name of the wife included). Chart these
individuals in date order in the christening and marriage registers (if burials
exist, use them also). Then ask yourself if these people are relatives from
Ireland. If you find that they have some of the same witnesses and godparents
involved with their lives as your ancestors did, then I would guess they were
siblings or cousins from Ireland. Trace out their lives to see where they are
from in Ireland. This, of course, is helpful if you’re seeking immigrant
origins.
- Take a given span of years and not look for the surname of those being
christened or married, but look strictly for the godparents and witnesses. This
way you can extract those familiar family surnames and see with whom they were
involved. Again the big question is whether they are friends, in-laws, or
cousins from Ireland.
- Catholic records in Ireland do start late. I will note one last strategy to
bridge the gap created by records which do not often start until the late 1820s
or early 1830s. Take note of who acted as the godparents to your ancestor’s
children, and if they have the same last name, you have probably stumbled upon
their siblings or cousins. Godparents at a christening are usually the same
generation as the couple having the children. The identity of witnesses at a
wedding can be more tricky; not only can they be siblings or cousins but also
parents to the groom or bride.
Conclusions
Catholic records can be one of the most useful sources
in your research. Just make sure that you keep an open mind about them even if
you don’t necessarily find what you’re looking for outright. Remember many
parishes in the US and Canada were made up of years and years of immigration
from the same area of Ireland - thus the local parish will have a high
percentage of persons from the same county in Ireland. There are so many
possibilities when researching in Catholic records that your imagination is
truly the limit on what you can learn from them.
Dwight Radford
I
wish to thank my friend, James R. Reilly, a native of New York City, for his
helpful suggestions and his review of this column.