Discover your family in the Catholic Heritage Archive

The Roman Catholic Church has some of the oldest and best-preserved family records. But for centuries, they've been locked away. Until now. Groundbreaking digitisation project, the Catholic Heritage Archive is bringing millions of church records online for the first time, only at Findmypast.

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English Catholic records

Contrary to popular belief, there is a strong Catholic family legacy in England, particularly in the northwest of the country. At Findmypast, you can access church records from the dioceses of Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Middlesbrough, Plymouth, Salford, Southwark and Westminster, most you won't find anywhere else online. Each collection includes a range of baptisms, marriages and other congregational records, essential for growing your family tree.

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Scottish Catholic records

The Catholic Heritage Archive includes Scottish church records you won't find anywhere else online. All 8 Scottish dioceses are covered - Aberdeen, Argyll & The Isles, Dunkeld, Galloway, Glasgow, Motherwell, Paisley and St Andrews & Edinburgh. Use the collections to uncover details of the most important milestones in your Scottish ancestors' lives, with transcripts and digitised copies of the original church records.

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Irish Catholic records

Catholicism has been the prevalent religion in Ireland for centuries. At Findmypast, you can explore over 10 million Catholic family records to find out more about your Irish heritage. Original church registers of baptisms, marriages, burials, communions, confirmations and more will reveal some of the most important details in your family's history. Every county and over 1,000 parishes in Ireland are covered.

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American Catholic records

By 1900, there were 12 million Catholics in the United States. Many of their legacies are preserved forever in precious family documents published online for the first time as part of the Catholic Heritage Archive, only at Findmypast. Church records from the dioceses of Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, New York, Philadelphia and Toledo can help you grow your family tree and understand the bigger picture of who you are and where you've come from.

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Start or upload your family tree

Clever family tree hints will instantly uncover Catholic records for you.

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Learn some Latin

Many Catholic records are in Latin. This handy guide will help you navigate them.

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Make Catholic connections

If your family emigrated, they could be in more than one record collection.

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Make connections across oceans

By 1900, 12 million Catholics were living in the United States. Emigrants from Ireland, Italy, Germany, Poland and other countries formed most of the Catholic population. As the Catholic Heritage Archive includes records from Britain, Ireland and America, if your relative moved from one of these countries to another, we can help you to trace them in several record collections. Take a look at our example below.

Catholics moving from Ireland to America

Millions of Irish people left the Emerald Isle for America during the 19th and early 20th centuries. If you find your ancestor's marriage record in our American Catholic records, it may include where they were originally from. If that place is listed as somewhere in Ireland, your next avenue of research should be our 10 million Irish Catholic Parish Registers - searching for their baptism is a sensible starting point.

Mary Lawrence married James McElroy on 30 June 1909 in the Church of Our Mother of Sorrows, Philadelphia, USA

In the example above, you'll see a marriage from our Philadelphia Roman Catholic Parish Marriages. Having the Irish parishes that the couple are from makes it easier to pinpoint them in Irish records. The above record states that Mary is from Mullinahone, County Tipperary.

Searching for Mary's baptism in our Ireland Roman Catholic Parish Baptisms and using the parish of Mullinahone to narrow the search, we find she was born in 1880 to parents William and Catherine. Interestingly, Mary's baptism record has been updated with a note about her marriage in America. "Said Mary married James McElroy on 30 June 1909 in Church of Our Mother of Sorrows, Philadelphia, USA."

If you were to find Mary's baptism record first, this extra script should then prompt you to search the Philadelphia Catholic records for her marriage. Catholic parish records were commonly updated with religious life events as they took place and this cross-referencing of records will help you to ensure you're focused on the right family.

This useful search technique doesn't just apply to Irish emigrants. Our American Catholic records are packed with entries of people from the UK and Europe too. Just remember, if your ancestor was Catholic and moved abroad at any point, you may well be able to track them down in more than one Catholic Heritage Archive record collection.

I just LOVE this site!

For over 20 years, I've had a family history 'brick wall' that I recently broke through thanks to Findmypast's Catholic Heritage Archive. I was able to prove, in less than 30 minutes, the long-held family suspicion that my ancestor was Jewish but converted to Catholicism. This one find alone, was worth the price of the subscription.

Laurie

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