England Catholic Church Records, Priests, Family and Estate Papers, Religious Orders (National Institute)

Other Catholic Records (cont.)
Chart: Particulars of Priests in England 1692

In England the equivalent to the Church of England’s Crockford’s Clerical Directory is The Catholic Directory published annually by The Universe newspaper; prior to 1845 it was called The Laity’s Directory. This gives:


 * Catholic dioceses and parishes and the organization in each diocese.
 * Name of each diocesan archivist, if there is one, or the Bishop’s secretary to whom you write if there isn’t.
 * The names of all officials and parish priests with their addresses and phone numbers.
 * Religious houses, schools, and national and local Catholic societies.
 * Indexes of priests, places and subjects and much else of interest.
 * The diocesan archivist or Bishop’s secretary can consult the ordination book and card catalogue of priests for the diocese.

Catholic Family and Estate Papers
During the penal period those who survived as Catholics were largely gentry and their Catholic servants and estate workers. The gentry were literate and educated and there are a great many family papers in existence which detail the lower classes in the household as well as the more affluent. These may be deposited in record offices or may still be with the family. The Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, now part of the National Archives, keeps a list of known ones, where they are and how they may be accessed, and this is searchable online. There are also a large number of local histories of Catholic families. Good places to start the search are: The five volumes of Gillow’s Bibliographic Dictionary of the English Catholics on, for which there is also an index and finding list by Bevan (Index and Finding List to Joseph Gillow’s Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics. J.W. Arrowsmith Ltd for John Bevan, Bristol, England..


 * Foley’s Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus in 8 volumes on.
 * Kirk’s Lives of the Eighteenth Century English Catholics.

Catholic Institutions and Religious Orders
Catholic priests and men and women in religious orders are very well documented and occur in most Catholic families, even though you are unlikely to be descended from one. Some folks are, as celibacy was not a requirement until the 16th century, and a few monks, nuns etc. entered an order after having had a family life, (and perhaps a few were naughty!) However, it is worth examining the records since any ancestor is likely to have had one or more siblings in a Catholic order, and their parentage and history will offer clues to your ancestor’s. The Catholic Directory is a good place to start, and then contact the appropriate diocesan archives which probably has a biography and perhaps a lot more. The Catholic Archive Society has been active in assisting amateur archivists at various Catholic institutions and orders to sort their material. 19th century material is becoming available as each diocese now has a record office which accepts deposits of this older material. Some bishops have designated the County Archives as their Diocesan Record Office in a similar manner to Anglican churches, and the FHL is microfilming as time and resources permit.

From 1568 Catholics had set up English institutions on the continent. Boys were sent for their general education to the colleges at Dieulouard, Douai, St. Gregory and St. Omer, and older ones were trained for the priesthood in seminaries in Lisbon, Madrid, Paris, Rome, and Valladolid. Convents for education of girls, some of whom would become nuns, were established starting in 1598 at such places as Bruges, Cambrai, Dunkirk, Ghent, Gravelines, Liége Louvain, Pontoise and Paris. By 1660 there were 40 English Catholic educational institutions in Europe. As they were located in safe, Catholic countries records could be kept and much of what is known about English Catholic families of the penal period derives from this source. The young people abroad were encouraged to write about their families and their experiences for the sake of Catholicism and the researcher can read these accounts today as they have been preserved. Most Catholic families will have some relatives in these annals. The continental institutions returned to England at the end of the 18th century and some of the easily accessible records published by the Catholic Record Society are shown in in the chart below.

The main male religious orders in Britain have been the Benedictines, Dominicans, Franciscans and Jesuits but there are many smaller groups as well. Their active participation in running institutions of various kinds is well documented.

There were about 7,000 nuns in England in 1900 and a central database of all those before 1914 is being compiled by the Catholic Family History Society and the Catholic Archives Society for eventual publication. The CFHS maintains an index of 14,000 English nuns from about 60 orders, out of an estimated 20,000 who have been in religious orders prior to 1914. Many of the congregations and houses of nuns have excellent records, and the database will provide a means of finding out which Order your relative joined. Nuns were usually very involved in running schools, hospitals, old people’s homes and orphanages or in foreign missions. Don’t be surprised to find plenty of French, Belgian, German and Irish as well as Anglican and Nonconformist converts working alongside them!

Chart: Some Records of English Religious Orders in Europe and England

In Miscellanea VII on is an example of notes and obituaries of Catholic nuns, including a picture of the convent and facsimiles of signatures of some of the senior sisters. A sample obituary is shown below.

Chart: Excerpts from the Obituary of an English Benedictine Nun of the Convent of Our Blessed Lady of Good Hope in Paris

Priests are well documented, at least while they were abroad, but during the penal period they are a lot harder to trace as they frequently used false names to avoid detection. However, the names used were often selected carefully to reassure believers that they were true priests rather than one of the many informers trying to gain a reward by uncovering a Catholic priest. Typically the mother’s maiden name, or some other family name was used, and this is very helpful to the genealogist, especially as this was the period when Catholic marriages tend not to have been written down. There are several standard texts on priests, including:


 * Anstruther’s Seminary Priests 1558-1800.
 * Bellenger’s English and Welsh Priests 1558-1800.
 * Birt’s Obit Book of the English Benedictines.
 * Fitzgerald-Lombards’s English and Welsh Priests 1801-1914.
 * Holt’s English Jesuits 1650-1829.

Gandy (Catholic Family History: A Bibliography of General Sources. Self-published, 1996) lists many more. A fascinating history of the late 16th century missioner’s safe-house at Grosmont Priory in Yorkshire can be found in Boddy (Catholic Missioners at Grosmont Priory. North Yorkshire County Record Office. . It gives great detail about the local Catholics as well as the missioners themselves.

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Information in this Wiki page is excerpted from the online course English: Non-Anglican Church Records offered by The National Institute for Genealogical Studies. To learn more about this course or other courses available from the Institute, see our website. We can be contacted at [mailto:wiki@genealogicalstudies.com wiki@genealogicalstudies.com]

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