FindMyPast: Digitizing Catholic Church records in the US, Britain and Ireland

We just received this press release from FindMyPast.com, and the ramifications are really quite huge.  Given the huge numbers of Catholic immigrants to the US, as well as the numbers of the Catholic church in general, these records could be a huge boon to your genealogical research. Catholic church records tend to be a goldmine of family history information, including detailed information on all the major events in a church member’s life. Their collection so far includes 100 million records, that can only be found on FindMyPast! Read the press release below for more details, and definitely check out their Catholic Heritage collection at FindMyPast.

PRESS RELEASE:

Findmypast Announces Plans to Publish Cincinnati & Chicago Sacramental Registers Online For the First Time

• Findmypast’s exclusive Catholic Heritage Archive continues to grow
• New partnership with the Archdioceses of Cincinnati will over 3 million original Sacramental Registers digitized, fully indexed and published online for the very first time
• A further 1.9 million records covering the Archdiocese of Chicago will also be released in partnership with FamilySearch international.  

 

Leading family history website, Findmypast, has today announced plans to publish over 4.9 Sacramental Registers in partnership with the Archdioceses of Cincinnati and FamilySearch International.

Digitization will soon be underway and over 800,000 fully indexed images of original Cincinnati Catholic baptism, marriage and burial registers containing over 3 million names and spanning the years 1800 to 1953 will be made available online for the first time, only at Findmypast, in 2018.

An additional 1.9 million Chicago Sacramental Registers will also be added to the site later in the year. Published in association with FamilySearch International, these records will cover 125 years of city’s history (1864 to 1989) and will add yet another important region to Findmypast’s growing collection of United States Catholic records.

Today’s announcement marks the latest in a series of updates to Findmypast’s exclusive Catholic Heritage Archive; a ground-breaking initiative that aims to digitize the historic records of the Catholic Church in the United States, Britain and Ireland for the very first time. The digitization of collections such as these is a monumental undertaking and, when complete, this exclusive collection will contain over 100 million records spanning 300 years of Catholic history

The Catholic Church holds some of the oldest and best preserved genealogical records in existence. However, as many of these documents memorialise important religious sacraments, their privacy has long been protected and access to original copies has, until recently, been hard to come by.

In collaboration with various Archdioceses, Findmypast is helping to digitize these important records and make them widely accessible for the first time in one unified online collection. Beautifully scanned color Images of original documents will be available to view and fully searchable transcripts will also be included, providing family historians with easy access to these once closely guarded records.

The Roman Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination in the world and it has always been a significant component (up to 25%) of the American population. These records will allow researchers from around the globe to uncover the history of millions of Irish, Italian, German, Polish and many other nationalities as they made a new home in the USA.

Additional Cincinnati and Chicago records as well as additional updates from variety of British, Irish, US and Canadian Dioceses will be added to the Catholic Heritage Archive throughout 2018.

Jen Baldwin, Data Acquisition Manager for North America at Findmypast said;“We are delighted to be adding the materials from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati and the Archdiocese of Chicago to the Catholic Heritage Archive on Findmypast. The addition of these two crucial Midwest communities will greatly enhance the ability for family historians all over the country to discover their Catholic stories.”

Sarah L. Patterson, M.L.S., Archdiocesan Archivist at the Archdiocese of Cincinnati added;
“We’re very excited to be working with Findmypast. This partnership will greatly increase research access to sacramental records in a way that we’ve never had before. With our earliest records beginning in the 1830s and given how Cincinnati was one of the largest cities in the United States in the 19th century and a stopping point for families migrating to the west, so many researchers will be able to trace their family line through our records.”