In a message dated 3/4/2008 7:02:04 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, radiotest@cox.net writes: State-wide registration of vital records in Massachusetts was enacted by the General Court in 1842, and that act was strengthened in 1844. Greetings, I was inclined to think that a "return" was the reporting, to the Clerk's office, a birth, death or marriage, so that the information could be entered into the appropriate register. I am guess it is just a matter of semantics. This post, however, is an opportunity to point out that the important thing to remember is where that info came from. I am not sure of the collection methods used for birth prior to 1844, but the School districts were charged with the task of collecting birth information after that. Judging by the order in which the info was recorded in the clerk's register, the information was gathered much like a census. Thus the dittos were found in the "residence" column, and the "informant" column. The death information was, before and after 1844, reported to the clerk by sextons. The Catholic sexton in Worcester was Thomas Maginnis, (George Sessions handled the Yankees.) and he was the "informant" for Catholic deaths for many years.He was the informant even after a column for "mortician or physician" was added to the Worcester register in June of 1847. He did not always provide Worcester with info for every death he handled. Some of those Catholics that were residents of towns outside of Worcester, but buried in Worcester, did not have their deaths recorded in any town's register. It seems that the Worcester clerk found out about this over-sight and in 1863 he dedicated 7 pages to 'deaths that occurred elsewhere but were interred in Worcester.' The info he collected reached back only to 1857, so there is sure to be unrecorded Catholic deaths for many years. As for marriages, the informant was the person that officiated. In the case of Catholics in most of Worcester county this would be the priest(s) of Christ's Church?St. John's Church in Worcester. They did not always bother Worcester's clerk with info on marriages that involved those persons that lived outside of Worcester, nor did they provide the clerk with all of the information that the law required them to provide (after 1844). In fact from Jan. 1846 to the fall of 1849 Catholic priests did not make any marriage returns to any clerk. There were 430 marriages recorded in the Church register during that time. In 1849, the clerk of Worcester must have been very firm in his request to the priests of St. John's Church, for he was able to get the Church to gather-up some of the information and send it allong to the clerk. Here is what the city clerk recorded in the town marriage register that was 'closed' in 1848: "An informal list if marriages has been handed to me by Rev. Mathew W. Gibson, the Roman Catholic priest of this city which is on file of City Papers of the year 1848. Mr. Gibson stated that it is a copy of the Church Records; the marriages are from February 11, 1846 to September 7, 1848. Mr. Gibson said that some of the marriages were solemnized in his presence, some before other Catholic priests; some in this city and some in other places: but he could not tell who or which they were in a fraction of the cases." The lists (the clerk required the two priests at St. John's to each file there own) that were presented did not contain much info,(his and her names, date of marriage and sometimes witnesses). The lists and other returns filed prior to 1850 did not contain any mention of over 200 marriages that were recorded in the Church register to that date. The lists that were presented in 1849 were not transcribed into the register, but were stuck, loose-leaf, into the back of the town death register. The marriages were indexed many years later with the index that was created to cover the years that started with 1848. This created a bit of a dilemma for the indexers, as the marriages were not recorded in the City Register Book 1, 2 or 3, but rather in the last pages of the Town Register. They called the loose leaf section of that register "book 4*" and noted that the book they were referring to was in the Town Records. At the end of Rev. John Boyce's list presented to the clerk in 1849 was this: "In the future all marriage certificates presented to us shall be carefully kept, filled up, and forwarded monthly as the law dictates to the Town Clerk." That did not always happen. John **************It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms, and advice on AOL Money & Finance. (http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolprf00030000000001)