Sorry about my first attempt at sending this - my fingers aren't working properly this morning. They must have a hang-over! In a message dated 23/06/2007 20:35:25 GMT Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: Now my question-- I saw an earlier message on the list archives, saying that there were no parish registers from that time. My question is-- would the babies have just been baptized secretly somewhere? Wouldn't that have concerned the local vicar? And would John Strong here have to have also been married in an Anglican church? Ryton doesn't go back far enough in the IGI for me to check today. I'll have to get the microfilm. And, apparently he was a widower. Would his wife have been buried in the local Anglican church yard? Thanks, Paula At the time the Roman Catholics of Ryton parish were probably meeting in a room at Stella Hall. No registers are known and probably either none were kept or else any that were have not survived. Catholics were still officially persecuted, though Ryton seems to have been a fairly enlightened parish, where they were at least "tolerated", probably because the Tempest family of Stella were major land-owners and employers, as well as actually being from time to time, benefactors of the parish church! I would check out Ryton p[parish registers (brief details of each entry, but not full ones, are on the IGI) as she may have been baptised there anyway, but if she is not found I would expect it ot mean she was baptised at Stella but no record survives. Marriage was a different matter. Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act of 1753 (came into force 1 January 1754) made it illegal to marry in England and Wales anywhere other than in a Church of England Parish Church (with comparatively minor exceptions, for Quakers and Jews). Hence, given that weddings were usually held in the bride's parish, you should seek it in Ryton marriage registers (also summarised on the IGI). Hers being a Roman Catholic family, look out for it having been by Licence, not after the calling of Banns! If it was by Licence then check on the Bond and Allegation needed before a Licence could be issued. You say that "Ryton does not go back far enough in the IGI for me to check today". That is not so. Ryton baptisms and burials are included on the IGI from the start of the surviving registers in 1582! However, I would qualify that, as always, by saying that what is on the IGI is a summary only, with no extra detail and is only a transcript, probably of the H M Wood transcripts, so it is a copy of a copy and so has a high probability of containing errors. All burials in Ryton parish were in the churchyard of Ryton Holy Cross Parish Church, both Anglicans and Roman Catholics (and any others as well). That was because at the time in question it was the only burial ground in the parish. Ryton does seem to have followed the tradition that the land on the immediate north of the church building (the "Devil's side"), which would be danker and less sunny than the sought-after spaces on the south side, was reserved for local ne-er-do-wells, suicides, criminals and evil-doers in general. Roman Catholics would certainly be included in that definition somewhere! To this day, the gravestones on the immediate north side of the church do not include any very old ones, it not having become respectable until the mid-19th century, around the time (1830s) when RC churches became allowed and that at Stella was opened, with its own burial ground. Geoff Nicholson