talk report - march 2006
22 March: Dr Alan Mitchinson - Catholicism, Criminality and Records
A very interesting talk was given by Dr. Mitchinson, in which he talked about what Catholic records were available, and where to find them. He began with ordinary Catholic Church Records, some of which have been published by the Catholic Record Society, others are deposited in local record offices, and some are kept at the Church themselves. The earliest Catholic Registers known were from the 1750s, but in general they began around the 1780s to 1790s. These can be extremely informative, sometimes containing more information than the corresponding Civil Register details, as the Priest generally knew extra information about the people concerned, such as the name of the child's father,(when the mother was not married), and he would write these down in the Registers, thus giving extra insight into their history. Another useful fact about Catholic Registers was the use of margin notes, in which the Priest would sometimes add further details about the person, e.g. in a baptismal record of a child, the date, place and spouse of the marriage of that child would be added at a later date. A warning was also given, in that later Catholic Registers (late 19l Century) were written in Latin, so a basic knowledge of Latin would be needed to understand them. Dr. Mitchinson also told us that from 1754 to the Registration Act of Sir Robert Peel in 1836, which allowed marriages in Catholic Churches, only marriages performed by the Church of England were considered legal. Because of this Catholics of that time were actually married twice; first in their own religion, and subsequently in the Church of England to make it legal. He showed that it is possible, if you are lucky, to find both the RC and the C of E marriage records for people at that time.
Dr Mitchinson later told us about what earlier records are available to trace Catholic ancestors, and he brought a number of these with him, which were available to look at after the talk. These included catholic censuses and registers taken in the years 1705 and 1767, the latter of which is ordered by household and area, and also Bishop Leyburn's Confirmation Register of 1687 which lists the names of all the Catholics confirmed by him in the North and the Midlands, together with the district.
He also gave us a number of websites of use in finding Catholic Records, including the very useful www.catholic-history.org.uk (see the links page). This was a fascinating and very useful talk on finding Catholic Records, and how to use them to trace your Catholic ancestors earlier than before Catholic Church Records were kept. (Report by Andrew Scarisbrick)