Search the sacramental registers from America’s oldest Roman Catholic Archdiocese? Congregational records will include your ancestor’s communion and confirmation records.
Search the sacramental registers from America’s oldest Roman Catholic Archdiocese? Congregational records will include your ancestor’s communion and confirmation records.
Each record will provide you with an image and a transcript of the vital facts. The transcript will include a combination of the following facts:
Name
Birth year
Event year
Event date
City
Parish
County
State
Country
Archive
The image will provide you with additional details such as the type of event (whether it is a communion or confirmation) or the other people in attendance.
This collection of sacramental registers has been digitised from the Maryland State Archives and the Archdiocese of Baltimore, the oldest Roman Catholic diocese in America. Among the records is marriage registers from the Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, America’s first Catholic Cathedral.
If you have discovered your ancestor in the marriage records, you should search for your ancestor’s baptism record in Baltimore Roman Catholic parish baptisms. You may even find your ancestor’s marriage record in the Baltimore Roman Catholic parish marriages.
If you would like to cite this record in your family history research, Findmypast suggests the following format: [Name of Parish] [Location]. Sacramental Registers, 1782 - 1918, [page number], [Item of interest "John Smith and Mary Jones, 17 October 1873"]; Archdiocese of Baltimore. Digital Images. Findmypast. (https://search.findmypast.com/search-world-records/baltimore-roman-catholic-parish-registers-browse : accessed DD MMM YYYY).
For example, the communion record for Irene McKee from 1890 would be cited as:
St Margaret (Baltimore, Maryland). Sacramental Registers, 1782-1919, page 15, Irene McKee communion, 7 December 1890; Archdiocese of Baltimore. Digital Images. Findmypast. (https://search.findmypast.com/search-world-records/baltimore-roman-catholic-parish-baptisms: accessed 7 September 2018).
Use the name variant option when you search for names and this will search all the Latinised versions of your ancestor’s name. For example, Joseph may have been recorded as Josephus.
Most Roman Catholic registers are in Latin. Latin was the official language of the Catholic Church until the 1960s, when the Vatican allowed the use of vernacular languages in masses. For help deciphering Latin terms, please see the below key terms:
Birth (nati, natus, genitus, natales, ortus, oriundus)
Baptism date (datum baptismi)
Birth date (datum nativitatis)
Birth place (locus nativitatis)
Cemetery (cemeterio)
Christening (baptismi, baptizatus, renatus, plutus, lautus, purgatus, ablutus, lustratio)
Child (infans, filius/filia, puer, proles)
Death, died (obiit, defunctorum, defuncti)
Father (pater)
Godparent (patrini, levantes, susceptores, compater, commater, matrina)
Marriage date (datum matrim)
Married together with (matrimonium contraxit cum)
Mother (mater)
Name and residence (nomen et residentia)
Parents (parentes, genitores)
Priest’s name (nomen sacerdotis)
Witnesses (testes or Praesentibus testibus)
When (quando)
Where (ubi)
Years of age (aetatis)