This week, continue getting carried away with your Catholic research

5-6 minute read

By Jessie Ohara | April 22, 2022

This week, continue getting carried away with your Catholic research

We've added nearly 500,000 new additions to our English Roman Catholic collections.

As part of our ground-breaking Catholic Heritage Archive project, and home to the largest collection of British Roman Catholic records, our indexes are ever-growing. This week, we have brand new additions to our Catholic baptisms, marriages, and burials, as well as an incredible 118 new and updated newspaper titles.

England Roman Catholic Parish Baptisms

The biggest release of the week, you can now explore nearly 400,000 new parish baptisms from the diocese of Salford.

St Mark's Church, Worsley, Salford, from the Francis Frith Collection.

St Mark's Church, Worsley, Salford, from the Francis Frith Collection.

Most transcriptions will include birth year and date, baptism year and date, church, parish, and parent's names. If you're working backwards, there's potential to discover more than one generation of ancestors to add to your family tree.

With Latin being the official language of the Catholic church until the 1960s, make sure to check out our comprehensive guide to understanding the language, helping you to decipher your ancestor's records quickly and easily.

Latin cheat-sheet

Alternatively, refer back to the cheat-sheet above - you'll be flying through Latin in no time.

England Roman Catholic Parish Marriages

Did your ancestor find love in Lancashire? We've added 85,988 new parish marriage records to this expanding collection, also from the diocese of Salford. As with all three of these indexes, there are also records from the diocese of Westminster, Southwark, Plymouth, Middlesex, Liverpool and Birmingham in this collection, making them comprehensive resources for Catholic marriages.

These records offer a combination of details, including marriage date, the church name, parish of both spouses, and father's name of both spouses.

If you're struggling to find your ancestor in these records, bear in mind that it was a legal requirement to marry under the Church of England between 1754 and 1837 - it's worth browsing through our broader Anglican records, even if you're certain of your Catholic heritage.

England Roman Catholic Parish Burials

Covering an incredible 92 churches across Lancashire and Greater Manchester, we've added 21,525 new burial records to this collection.

'Rector's Catholic Burial', Weekly Dispatch, 1913.

'Rector's Catholic Burial', Weekly Dispatch, 1913.

These records offer an abundance of information, including death date, burial date, and often burial ground. Make sure to check our expansive newspaper archive for your ancestors as well. Often, obituaries of notable names were recorded, offering further information on the death of your ancestor.

A notice about the portioning of a Roman Catholic burial ground, Uttoxeter Advertiser and Ashbourne Times, 1909.

A notice about the portioning of a Roman Catholic burial ground, Uttoxeter Advertiser and Ashbourne Times, 1909.

As well as this, you may discover news surrounding the Catholic appropriation of church and cemetery grounds in the 18th and 19th centuries. Though Catholics often faced marginalization, the religion has flourished since the 1800s, and the Catholic church continued and succeeded in negotiations for more expansive grounds.

Read all about it

After hitting our milestone of 50 million newspaper pages just last week, we're storming ahead with another 500,000 new additions. You'll find 16 new titles stretching to all corners of the UK and beyond, with Welsh, Scottish, and Irish titles, as well as updates to 102 existing papers.

Amongst our new titles, you'll find Irish paper the Evening News (Waterford). 110 years ago this week, this title reported on the first successful flight from Britain to Ireland, after the tragedy of Damer Leslie Allen. Mr. Leslie Allen had set out to fly from London to Dublin, but regrettably did not reach his destination.

'A Missing Airman', Evening News (Waterford), 1912.

'A Missing Airman', Evening News (Waterford), 1912.

As the paper reported, popular opinion was that Damer Leslie Allen had dropped to sea:

""...he was fully equipped with floats and lifebelt, [so] he may be able to keep afloat till picked up by a passing vessel.""

Unfortunately, he was never recovered, and was consequently pronounced dead. This didn't defer his friend Denys Corbett Wilson, however, from engaging in the same task:

""The other Irish aviator, Mr. Corbett Wilson, who started to fly from London to Dublin with Mr. Allen, has reached the South Welsh coast, and proposes to continue his flight.""

This was a daunting task - as the paper stated, the Irish Sea presented more of a challenge than the English Channel, and previous aviators had been forced to swim ashore after their plane crashed.

Evening News (Waterford), 1912.

Evening News (Waterford), 1912.

Mr. Corbett Wilson was successful, and his achievement made him somewhat of a celebrity: he continued to grace the pages of the Evening News (Waterford) with his flying triumphs. Not long after, his flight back to London amassed a crowd of admirers. The paper later stated:

""Mr. Wilson is a young gentleman of means, and, though not long a student of the fascinating pastime, has readily achieved wonderful success.""

But this is just one newspaper of many - make sure you browse through our full list of new and updated titles below.

New titles:

Updated titles:

Just head to our newspaper archive and filter by the title of your choosing using the 'By Newspapers' button. No matter what you've discovered, we want to hear about it. You can tweet us, find us on Facebook, or email [email protected] to share your stories.

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Picture of Jessie O'Hara - Brand Marketing AssistantJessie O'Hara

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