Dear Maureen et al, I am adding to what nancy Coleman has said- and she is right about all of it. As to churches and locations in Manhatten go to this site http://community-2.webtv.net/shamrockroots/SHAMROCKROOTS/ when the site comes on, scroll down to Helpful hints and click there you will find the list of RC churches in Manhattan, with locations and the dates the church was opened. Also if the church records are at another location. Thanks to Moira for providing this information via Charles Sullivan of the NYC list. Hopefully this will help some of you looking mainly in Manhattan. I have yet to see information on churches in the other boroughs. You may have to join other lists, Bronx, Brooklyn etc in order to ask questions regarding churches in the neighborhoods or near an address you have found. Also to add to Nancy's suggestions of calling the parish rectory/secretary. Not everyone who answers the phone in all the offices will speak English. This could cause a problem, but usually there is someone there on staff who wil have an idea of what you want and are looking for. Not everyone is registered in a directory either. Most diectories, a person ppain to be in, and many just couldn't afford to be in them unless they were in a business. I'm still checking some directories for relatives unfound since 1888. And th epeople may have lived at one address when info was put into a directory and moved by the time it came out. People moved around a lot back in those days, for one reason or another, sometimes lease , sometimes cost of rent and some places offering fre rent for a period of time to get occupants. Also until after 1900 not all births registered and you may never find out the exact year, or you may find information in subsequent places like census a age but don't take it as gospel, I have seen many descrepancies as to age, especially for females, for whatever reason. Also marriages not registered as far as city records, but would be at church, when you find the right one. Not everyone is on the brides list or grooms list, films that can be rented thru your local Family History Center. Check these out and remember if it's a comon name, you will have to do even more searching until you find the right one. As to death certificates, it will help if you have an idea of when the party died as to getting the right death certificate. In my case, I had no idea when my Gfather died ( before I was born) and went thru sending for 7 certificates before getting the right one. And death certificate information is only as good as who it was that gave the information, if it was a friend, or neighbor, even a relative may not have known all the right answers to the questions. This is a time consuming hobby, and takes a lot of investigation getting to the exact thing you want. It took me 35 years to find my grandparents place of birth ( England and Ireland) county that is, and still not sure of town. If you think trying to find people in NYC is too hard, don't bother to try Ireland. Next suggestion find a good researcher that knows what to do and hire them, pay the fee asked and sit back and wait, you won't have any self satisfaction this way but you will eventually have some information to check. Last bit of advice, take Nancy's advice. Good luck! Pat