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Using Catholic Parish Records and Archives

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Sacramental records of the Roman Catholic Church are an exceptionally valuable resource for genealogy because of the amount of detail they tend to include, both with regard to families and to personal events, and because of their long extent – starting with the Council of Trent in the mid sixteenth century.  These records can also be frustratingly unavailable, depending on who their gatekeeper is.  Take a closer look at the records and archival practices of the Catholic Church throughout the world, what resources are available, where they can be found, and what one is likely to discover, as well as some possible ways around recalcitrant ecclesiastical bureaucrats.

The Rev. Dr. W. Becket Soule studied at Davidson College, the Episcopal Divinity School, the University of Dallas, and Harvard University, and holds the professional Certificate in Genealogical Research from Boston University.  Becket has taught at the Catholic University of America, the Dominican House of Studies (Washington, DC), the Pontifical College Josephinum (Columbus, OH), and Oxford University, and is currently Emeritus Professor of Canon Law at St Paul University in Ottawa, Ontario (Canada).  He has been visiting lecturer and fellow at other institutions of higher studies in the United States, Great Britain, and the Ukraine; Becket has served as pastor of Anglican and Catholic parishes in Texas, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and England.  He is now pastor of St Margaret of Scotland Catholic Church in Maggie Valley, NC.

Proud of his Mayflower heritage, Becket is a member of the Society of Mayflower Descendants (currently Deputy Governor and Elder of the Canadian Society, and Governor and Historian of the NC Society), editing The Descendants of George Soule of the Mayflower and The Descendants of Philip Delano of the Fortune. He is an active member of the Society of Colonial Wars, the Military Order of the Stars and Bars, and the United Empire Loyalist Association; he is currently President of Soule Kindred in America, and chairman of the research committee of Delano Kindred.  Becket is the Secretary and Historian of the North Carolina Genealogical Society and Book Review Editor of the NCGS Journal; his current quest (or obsession) is tracking down his ancestors in Proprietary North Carolina.