Is there a central place where the records of all Roman Catholic Baptisms in Wash. DC are recorded, other than the specific Churches. Don't know whether the Archdiocese of Washington would have the records, but they could probably answer your question. Here's their address and telephone number: 5001 Eastern Ave Hyattsville, MD 301-853-4500 Barbara

----- Original Message ----- From: <Baclem5656@aol.com> To: <WashingtonDC-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, August 22, 2002 5:41 AM Subject: [WashingtonDC'' ] Re: Roman Catholic Baptisms I've never heard of a centralized location. Most parishes still maintain hand-written ledgers (many going back to pre-Civil War days), and are usually very good at providing information over the phone or filling in the information on a "certificate of baptism" which they will then mail to the requester. The most helpful thing in our family's research has been to see the names of the godparents at each baptism. Invariably, it has been an aunt, uncle, or cousin of the baby. We've managed to confirm several relationships by looking at the names of godparents. In addition, it's been interesting to confirm the baby's FULL first & middle names, along with the spelling of the last name at birth. Within our family, these things sometimes changed over the years. Frank Dunnigan > Is there a central place where the records of all Roman Catholic Baptisms in > Wash. DC are recorded, other than the specific Churches.