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