Dear Judy and Bob, Judy: My great grandparents were also married at St. Marys in New Haven [in 1882]. Like you, I obtained a certificate of marriage from St. Marys and a copy of their marriage license from the New Haven registrar. The information in one document mirrors the other. A couple of times, I spoke with a very helpful lady at St. Mary. She took the time to check the records and confirmed that the church records contained nothing that was not included on the certificate of marriage that they had sent me earlier. In my opinion at least in my case -- St. Mary and vital statistics have given me all they have. Bob Martin: In my experience, the Catholic Church does not readily allow private citizen access to their archives. When they do make Exceptions to that rule require a dispensation from the dioceses/archdioceses. But I have to tell you, that some parishes have been known to deny access to their records even though a dispensation has been obtained. Good luck! Divina
Just my 2 cents. My family records are at St. Mary's in Branford. I went to the parish and asked the minister. He invited me in. Went to the records and found what I was looking for. Although I was never allowed to touch the book.( quite old you know ) He was an interesting and polite. I know face to face is not always an option but it does help sometimes. Cindy Lou Burgess Researching, Lawler(or) Stannard, Hay, Struzinski, Dziemit, Burgess, Smith, Ferguson, Spak, Singer & Doyle -----Original Message----- From: Divina Johnston [mailto:ddjohnston@erols.com] Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2003 11:02 AM To: CTNEWHAV-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [CTNEWHAV] Re: 1857 marriage certificate Dear Judy and Bob, Judy: My great grandparents were also married at St. Marys in New Haven [in 1882]. Like you, I obtained a certificate of marriage from St. Marys and a copy of their marriage license from the New Haven registrar. The information in one document mirrors the other. A couple of times, I spoke with a very helpful lady at St. Mary. She took the time to check the records and confirmed that the church records contained nothing that was not included on the certificate of marriage that they had sent me earlier. In my opinion at least in my case -- St. Mary and vital statistics have given me all they have. Bob Martin: In my experience, the Catholic Church does not readily allow private citizen access to their archives. When they do make Exceptions to that rule require a dispensation from the dioceses/archdioceses. But I have to tell you, that some parishes have been known to deny access to their records even though a dispensation has been obtained. Good luck! Divina ==== CTNEWHAV Mailing List ==== Please do not send messages with attachments, HTML, MIME, or any other enhanced text to the list. RootsWeb does not allow messages with those settings through their servers and will only return them to you. ============================== To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237