The diocese might have them?
either the parish has closed completely, in which case the records are now stored at the chancery in the diocesan archives, or it has merged with another parish, in which case the new parish has all the old records. In any case the diocese microfilms all the records periodically so there is probably a microfilm duplicate in the diocesan archives as we. If you find your old parish is gone, look around for the nearest neighboring parish and inquire, or call the diocese.
That’s good that they have microfilmed them, so it would probably even be possible for people to get really old records for family geneology research.
no it is not, those are closed for privacy reasons. If you want a sacramental record you have to have the right to ask for it. As in standard archival practice, those records would be available for research, usually 50 years after the death of the youngest person in the record, but they are not open to general research. One possibility would be that in the case where the diocese retains the services of a regional history library to microfilm and preserve the records, a microfilm copy of records open to researchers may be available there, but in general you can’t just go into a parish or diocesan archives and do your own research.
Military records are generally archived by the Archdiocese for the Military Services of the United States, formerly called the Military Ordinariate. If you were baptized on base, they have the record. milarch.org/sacramental/index.html
Well, luckily, in Ohio, marriage records are still available to anyone. So for geneology research on one’s family, those would be easy to obtain. If one had the civil marriage records, would it be possible to obtain the sacramental marriage records (if they were one and the same; i.e., if for instance I wanted to know what parish and which priest officiated at my great-grandparents’ wedding)? I do know that they were married in the Catholic Church, no divorce/remarriage or anything contrary to the Catholic Sacrament of marriage.
for genealogy research begin at the library of the Western Reserve Historical Society. They are the official public records archivist for their region, and also have the preservation microfilming lab and vault. They handle (or did when I lived there) the microfilming for the diocese, and have made a concerted effort to identify and microfilm church records of all denominations, particularly defunct congregations of significance, such as Black Churches, Pilgrim Church, various ethnic congregations that have merged with larger bodies. they also filmed funeral home records which are another valuable source of info. They also have the Mormon family search files, census records etc. That is your first stop for gen research in NE Ohio. Again, private records which they microfilm on contract would be available for researchers only be agreement with the source, and only according to standard archival practice.
Thanks! I am not a member of the Western Reserve Historical Society, but I am a member of the Historical Society of Old Brooklyn, a west side historical society. I am also a member of the Friends of Cleveland Cemeteries, a group that is involved with the history of the city cemeteries and preservation of such.