Diocese Records A Reliable Source

Do you think of the Roman Catholic Church as all under one authority, marching in unity, not only in faith but in record keeping? Well, Roman Catholics may be one in faith but certainly not in record keeping.

So began a presentation by George Ryskamp at the Utah Genealogical Society last April.

If your ancestors were Roman Catholic, he said, church records should form the backbone of your genealogical research. The Council of Trent, which in 1543 designated the format used in parish baptismal, marriage and death records worldwide, also ordered the creation of bishops’ archives.

Within his jurisdiction, the bishop is all powerful, and the parish is only a geographical entity within the diocesan jurisdiction. The bishop decides what will be done with the records in his area. He also has control over the particulars of how the records are created.

Ryskamp said this might mean that the grandparents’ names are added to a baptismal record - or not. The bishop regularly sends out directives to the local parish priests in his jurisdiction on how to compile the records, which he reviews annually.

The Catholic Church has always been very concerned with accurate records, Ryskamp said.

The boundaries of the diocese generally follow the local political boundaries, but not always. Each diocese has an annual published index or list of parishes within its boundaries. As a new diocese was created, the records up to that point stayed in the old diocese (just like federal census records).

To find Catholic Church records, Ryskamp said, first check to see if the records are still held in the parish. Usually, you can hope that they are not in the parish because there is increased evidence of better retention if they were sent to the diocesan offices.

The early American way of record keeping was a bit looser and lazier than its European counterparts, Ryskamp said.

Records held by a diocese can include financial and administrative records, ecclesiastical personnel records, matrimonial petitions (in some European dioceses, the bishop had to personally approve each marriage), charitable donations and trusts, judicial materials, records dealing with specific parishes, and notarial records (wills, marriage contracts, notary).

These records are vastly different from parish sacramental records, which are often found in table or paragraph form. The older ones were often written in Latin. In European records, there are often papers giving background information taken before the marriage.

The diocesan archives might also include parish clubs.

The Catholic Church was the first to use banns. This is where news of the proposed marriage was published or spoken in church for three successive Sundays. Banns were created because there was no real way to know the spiritual background or worthiness of an emigrant to the parish. In rural 18th century New York, for instance, the priest couldn’t write back to Ireland for a testimony, Ryskamp said.

The best guidebook for finding American Catholic records is Virginia Humling’s “U.S. Catholic Sources: A Diocesan Research Guide,” Ryskamp said. While this book is nowhere near complete - because of the lack of response from some busy diocesan historians or archivists - it’s the best book available.

To obtain a parish address, consult the “Catholic Directory,” a very large book available in the diocesan office or in larger parish offices.