The Minnesota Research note for July includes a page from the original register from the Catholic parish of St. Anthony from 1851, with an opportunity for someone to get a free subscription to the Minnesota Genealogical Journal. It's about transcriptions, extracts and indexes. You can find it at http://www.parkbooks.com/Html/research.html Mary Mary Bakeman mbakeman@parkbooks.com Park Genealogical Books http://www.parkbooks.com

Thanks to Mary Bakeman for introducing the topic of St. Anthony of Padua parish in NE Minneapolis. Besides my interest in genealogy, I am also a Minneapolis history buff. I believe that St. Anthony of Padua RC parish is the oldest in Minneapolis. It started out in St. Anthony - the cities of Minneapolis and St. Anthony merged in the 1860s so all of 'old' St. Anthony became part of the City of Minneapolis. (There is a suburb of St. Anthony next to Minneapolis on the ne corner - this sometimes confuses researchers.) We lack a truly good history of St. Anthony, the village/city that merged with Minneapolis. There was a time, before settlement on the west bank of the Mississippi River was allowed, when St. Anthony had a greater population than Minneapolis. Settlement in St. Anthony goes back to the 1830's. By the 1840's, a tiny village was growing - one source said it was a population of 50 souls. This was a voyageur/metis village located above St. Anthony Falls on the east bank of the Mississippi - near or just north of Boom Island. Pierre Bottineau was a great leader - he ran an upriver freight company - using voyageurs to transport goods from Ft. Snelling to forts in the north. It seems that across the river, near where the west side of the Hennepin Bridge is today, there was a small Dakotah village. At the same time, a Dakotah woman whose name was not recorded, ran the first known ferry service, across the Mississippi River. St. Anthony of Padua was originally a French or metis or voyageur parish. It started as a mission - Fr. Galtier rode on horseback to conduct masses and adminster sacraments from the church of St. Paul - today a cathedral, home to the Archdiocese. Later on, the parish became so dominated by the Irish that the French ethnics broke away and founded another church/parish, Our Lady of Lourdes. If you have info about St. Anthony of Padua, stories or simply genealogical data, I would love to hear it! Thanks, Shawne FitzGerald Minneapolis Mary Bakeman wrote: > The Minnesota Research note for July includes a page from the original > register from the Catholic parish of St. Anthony from 1851, with an > opportunity for someone to get a free subscription to the Minnesota > Genealogical Journal. It's about transcriptions, extracts and indexes. > > You can find it at http://www.parkbooks.com/Html/research.html > > Mary Mary Bakeman > mbakeman@parkbooks.com > Park Genealogical Books > http://www.parkbooks.com > > > >