Findmypast to Publish More Sacramental Registers

FindMyPast announced that it plans to grow their Catholic Heritage Archive by adding a large number of sacramental registers from Catholic Churches in Cincinnati and Chicago. FindMyPast also will add additional updates to their Catholic Heritage Archive throughout 2018.

The Catholic Heritage Archives is intended to become the most comprehensive online collection of Roman Catholic records for the USA, Britain, and Ireland. FindMyPast launched a groundbreaking initiative to digitize historic records of the Catholic Church.

There are millions of Irish records already online at the Catholic Heritage Archive. More are being added, including the sacramental registers of England, Scotland, and the United States. The first three United States dioceses added to the Catholic Heritage Archive were Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore – for a total of 30 million records.

FindMyPast is now working on the digitization of over 800,000 indexed images of original Cincinnati Catholic baptism, marriage, and burial registers. Those records contain over 3 million names and span the years 1800 to 1953. They will be made available online, for the very first time, only at FindMyPast, in 2018.

In addition, FindMyPast is also working on the digitization of 1.9 million Chicago Sacramental Registers. These records cover 125 years of the city’s history (1864-1989).

FindMyPast notes that the Roman Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination in the world and that it has always been a significant component (up to 25%) of the American population. The digitized records in the Catholic Heritage Archive will allow researchers from around the world to uncover the history of the millions of Irish, Italian, German, Polish, and many other minorities as they made a home in the United States.

It is possible to search the Catholic Heritage Archive on FindMyPast. You can fill in a search box with the Who, When, and Where of the person you are searching for. There are links provided that will bring up a search for English Roman Catholic Records, United States Roman Catholic Records, Irish Roman Catholic Records, or Scotland Roman Catholic Records.

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* Genealogy and Catholicism

* NEHGS is Working to Create a Database of Catholic Records