Hi, I am not an expert, but in my research, I have found that the dates reported for the establishment of a church may vary for several reasons. Some parishes may develop rather quickly, as a town with the coming of the railroad may have had a large jump in population very quickly. Other parishes may develop slowly - A few people may move to an area where there is no settlement/town...These people may request a priest or missionary to visit, or a priest or missionary may come across them during their travels, and minister to their spiritual needs....These people may set about building a church building right away, and yet, not have a resident pastor...Or, the population and needs of the area may prompt a priest or missionary to locate to the area before a church building is there, and the priest may organize the building of the church himself - If the latter is the case, there would likely be sacramental records prior to the building of the church, since there would likely be baptisms, marriages, and deaths during that interim... There are different types of records which are kept, for example, sacramental records, financial records, building records, land records, etc. One author may be looking at the records for the actual building of the church, and using that as the date of establishment; another may be using the dates of the first sacramental records for members of the congregation (which could have been kept locally, or at a parish which a visiting priest called home); yet another could use the date that a parish church first had it's own resident pastor, rather than a visiting pastor. In other words, there is some degree of interpretation involved when using the information contained in the many different types of records, and assessing which of the different stages, in the development of a parish, to call "established". I hope this makes sense and is helpful to you. Respectfully, --Ann Mensch +Local Catholic Church History and Genealogy Research Guide and Worldwide Directory http://home.att.net/~Local_Catholic/ [email protected] wrote: > What I find interesting and a mystery is that my grandfather was born in 1882 > and I have the records of St Josephs church in Dannemora N.Y. where he was > baptised, Aug , 1882. This summer while visiting I too discovered that the > church was not established until 1883. Can anyone explain?? Margo