Laurie: I was told that this was a prohibition for purely religious reasons, not because of any fee that could be charged for the information. As a non-Catholic, I respect that rationale. It is a totally different thing when family information has been co-opted for LDS repositories and is not available without membership and fees. Natalie ----- Original Message ----- From: "Laurie" <larzemail@yahoo.com> To: <paphilad@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 3:02 PM Subject: Re: [PAPhl] Philadelphia Catholic Cemeteries Office > I've found Catholic records to be particularly helpful. However, the > public is not allowed to view the records. There are two repositories, > each that charges a fee, that are excellent resources: > > Philadelphia Catholic Cemeteries Office (CCO) is one. A fee of $15 is not > new; it's actually been posted in some cemeteries for a few years now. > However, not all cemeteries are strict about this, particularly if one is > asking where a family is buried in person. CCO has friendly staff, and a > phone call is the best way to reach them, though e-mail and postal mail > are options as well. > > Philadelphia Archdiocesan Historical Research Center is the other. > http://www.pahrc.net/ I paid $25 about a year ago, and I sent in detailed > information listing the exact known dates of births and marriages. I > received 3 generations' worth of documentation for that one fee. It helps > to limit their time by doing work in advance. Death records are not > available at PAHRC. For genealogical purposes, records of baptisms and > marriages are the only events available here. General questions can be > asked by calling or e-mailing them, but that shouldn't be necessary since > they list holdings and churches they have records for. I highly recommend > this for anyone with Catholic ancestors. I need to order more records, but > budget reasons make it necessary to space out my requests--it's almost > time for another set of records to be ordered :) > > For reasons I do not understand, but that may be due to what Natalie > writes of below, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get information > when visiting certain cemeteries. Additionally, photographs are becoming > an issue: many people have been told they cannot take photos, and more > than once people have been asked to leave when taking photographs. > Philadelphia is a fascinating area to research, and there are so many > repositories that are fairly easy to access (though admittedly it does > take some money if you can't visit the city), but as with any area, the > more work done in advance of approaching anyone at the above 2 > repositories or any of the cemeteries that have offices the better the > chances of getting the information sought. > > > --- On Wed, 5/12/10, Natalie Burrows <ndburrows@verizon.net> wrote: > Many years ago, I attended a genealogical conference in Philadelphia at > which I learned that the Catholic Church had a prohibition against > releasing > any church records of a deceased Catholic. Not being Catholic myself, I > did > not know if this was true but a Catholic attendee assured me that she had > run into this brick wall. With a widespread and growing interest in family > genealogy, I am sure these rules have been relaxed or eliminated but some > records may still be hard to find. > Natalie > ndburrows@verizon.net > > > > > ********* > Visit the threaded archives of this list: > http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/PAPHILAD > ********* > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > PAPHILAD-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >