Roman Catholic?

[MarieC]

Hi ggrocott

The same thing happened to me several years ago, and startled me considerably!

Anyway - to cut a long story short, I learned that RC records have normally not been handed into records offices, but are still with the churches.  You need to identify and approach the churches where your ancestors might have had their ceremonies and see if they will allow you access to search their records.

It will be up to the individual church what answer you get.  I was really lucky with mine - they turned up at St James' Spanish Place in London, and that church searched its records and sent me everything they found (I am not in Britain).  I am very grateful to them!

My ggggrandfather certainly had both a Catholic and Anglican marriage to his first wife.

Catholic registers do not seem to exist before about 1780 so you might hit a brick wall there - I have.  Also they do not seem to have burial registers, just baptism and marriage registers.  I am not sure why this is.

MarieC

[jds1949]

There appears to be a Gloucestershire Catholic History Society

http://www.cliftondiocese.com/gloucestershire-catholic-history-society-latest-journal-out-now

Might be worth contacting them to see if they know what survives in the way of records for Chepstow/Tidenham.

jds1949

[ggrocott]

Thank you.  I will do that.

[rogee]

Hi All I found the Roman Catholic discussions forum very interesting, I have previously posted that I have come to a dead end with my ancestor John Foulser who married Mary Lamborn in St George Hanover Square Mayfair in 1752, this is a RC church, and like many London Church's all there details have been sent to public records office's, I have had no luck finding John or Mary's birth or death details, which as we all know does help. I can now try a different way forward, has anybody got any other suggestions? Roger

[jds1949]

I don't think that St George's Hanover Square was a Catholic church, although that doesn't mean that Catholics didn't marry there.

Records of Catholics in London dating from the 18th century are relatively rare. The Catholic Family History Society has produced transcriptions of the registers of the Neapolitan Chapel, the Imperial Chapel and the Venetian Chapel which all date from the 18th Century. These were all chapels attached to foreign embassies and therefore immune to Government action and all three were used by London Catholic families. However I can't see any references to any Foulser families in any of them.

The only central London Catholic chapel open and functioning during the time period in which you are interested would seem to have been the Mission at Lincoln's Inn Fields [SS Anselm & Cecilia] - which was under the protection of the Sardinian Embassy. This has also been transcribed, but the registers date from a latter date than the one you want, see:

http://www.parishregister.com/parish_shop/product_detail.asp?ID=3476&CatID=289

However I think that baptisms from an earlier date for this chapel were transcribed by the Catholic Record Society and should be available at the Metropolitan  Record Office, or possibly through inter-library loan. *

The basic problem is that for the time that you are looking at Catholics were considered to be of doubtful loyalty and open practice of their faith was, to all intents and purposes, illegal. In areas of the country which were far from the Government in London, such as Lancashire, there was a reasonable degree of toleration, but in London life for those of the Catholic faith was difficult. As there were no churches as such baptisms carried out by Catholic priests were recorded in his personal book, if they were recorded at all and consequently few, if any, survive.

Sorry to be so pessimistic,

jds1949

*UPDATE - you can download this volume free from: http://ia301514.us.archive.org/2/items/publicationscath11unkwuoft/publicationscath11unkwuoft.pdf

[rogee]

Hi Jds
         Like you, I did not think there were many Catholic churches in London at that time or anywhere else come to that, Henry the V111 sorted that out. I just checked out the site on google, it quotes that the building was created from a design by John James as a result of a Parliamentary act in 1711, it also features a painting of the last supper 1724. I am not aware of the religion of either John or Mary, I can only guess that one of them was religious of some description, having checked other Foulsers in the Norfolk area, they did all tend to get married and have the kids christened, which does not happen very much in today's society. Until I read the forum comments, I had not paid much heed to the religious side of a family tree. I only live twenty miles from the church , I will call in and have a look round, Thanks very much for your Input. Roger