Start with knowns and work toward answering the unknowns. Where did the family live when the baby was born? Is it more likely they attended one parish than another based on geography? Check with relatives, maybe one of them knows where he was baptized because she was there as the godmother.
As far as genealogy goes the parishes run the gammit from most cooperative to purely evil. I am glad my faith rests on Jesus and the belief that the claims of the Church are true because the arrogant and uncooperative pastors I have dealt with will have to explain why they caused so many people to leave the Church due to their lack of civility. Shame on wek faithed people who leave but shame on PRIESTS who are so rude and unkind on a very minor issue. They protect these records with more gusto than the Sacramental Jesus!
I am aware that these records were not created for my genealogy. There is a right way and a wrong way to handle these requests. When you charge $25 per request it has become a businesss and he must act accordingly. He chose to ask for $25; he could just be frank and say no I can’t research that.
Marriage records are public information. Banns were and continue to be run in parish bulletins. The priests were supposed to turn in copies of weddings performed by them to the courthouse but many 19th and early 20th century Catholc weddings were not recorded in the Health Department records. St. Raphael’s in one of only three RC parishes in Manhattan to have their records microfilmed and available through Salt Lake City. From 1886-1907 almost 1500 weddings were performed at St. Raphael’s and less than 32% were recorded with the Health Department as was the law in NY from 1847 on. ZERO were reported to the City between 1886-1893.
I checked the weddings myself for a paper. If one doubts my claim obtain a known Catholic wedding in Manhattan and check the index of brides at the Italian genealogical Group’s website at
www.italiangen.org
Milston S. Hershey who founded Hershey Chocolate married his wife at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan in 1898 in the rectory since he was not Catholic. Even at the Cathedral this wedding was not reported to the Health Department as late as 1898!
This is one reason why the 1917 Code specified that the priest could not marry people if it were against the law of that locality.
In 1908 a NY marriage license law pre-empted the lack of reporting the earlier statute faced. The couple got the license before the wedding and the clergyman was required to have the license from them before performing a wedding.
From 1853 on there were fines of $50 an omission against the clergy that were apparently never enforced. St. Raphael’s alone would have owed a HUGE penalty.
If NY registers and others were microfilmed and avialable to the public at a central archive or through the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, then the secretaries would not have to deal with our pesky requests. Chicago has done this and the gates of hell have not opened in Lake Michigan!!
