The original records of St. Peter's, the oldest Roman Catholic parish in New York City (and New York State), are available to researchers in a four-reel set of microfilm at the New York Public Library, part of the NYG&B Collection now housed at the NYPL (call no. *R-USLHG *ZI-1390). These records are unusual not only because of their age (baptisms begin in 1787) but because they are among the few Catholic church records of New York City that are accessible in a non-church facility.
Historical Background
The Roman Catholic Church was not permitted to function in New York during the Dutch and British colonial periods, except for the administration of Gov. Thomas Dongan (1683-88), who was himself Catholic. In what is now northern and western New York State, outside of Dutch or British jurisdiction, there were French missionaries from Canada who sought converts among the native population, but within the European-settled area the occasional visiting priest had to operate covertly.
Given this inhospitable climate, it is not surprising that very few Catholics immigrated to New York, especially when they could openly practice their faith in colonies such as Pennsylvania or Maryland. Some did come to New York City, however. Records of certain Protestant churches of the period show marriages of couples who were probably Catholic. One is less likely to find baptisms of their children, which may have been performed privately by a priest.
The American Revolution changed all this, and in 1785, after the British evacuation of New York, St. Peter's Church was founded. Property was acquired on Barclay Street, where St. Peter's is still located (the current building dates from 1837). For more on the history of St. Peter's see Leo Raymond Ryan, Old St. Peter's, The Mother Church of Catholic New York (New York: U.S. Catholic Historical Society, 1935).
Diocesan Organization
Today, New York State is divided into seven dioceses and one archdiocese, as shown by the map on page 16. In the beginning, however, the entire United States was the Diocese of Baltimore, so St. Peter's initially came under that jurisdiction. In 1808 the Diocese of New York was created, at first covering the entire state (and part of New Jersey); it was raised to an archdiocese in 1850. Today the Archdiocese includes the boroughs of Manhattan, Bronx, and Staten Island, plus seven counties in the lower Hudson Valley (Brooklyn and Queens are in the separate Diocese of Brooklyn, established in 1853). See the Historical Sketch in the WPA Inventory cited below, also Florence D. Cohalan, A Popular History of the Archdiocese of New York (Yonkers: U.S. Catholic Historical Society, 1983).
Other Parishes
All Catholic parishes in the three boroughs of Manhattan, Bronx, and Staten Island, and their record holdings, are described in some detail in Volume 8 of the series Inventory of the Church Archives of New York City, published by the Historical Records Survey of the Work Projects Administration (WPA) in 1941 (unfortunately, a similar volume for Brooklyn and Queens was not published). In most cases the parishes retain their registers and they are only available there. For current addresses see the Official Catholic Directory, published annually. Manhattan parishes are also listed (with map) in the September 1996 newsletter of The Irish Family History Forum. Maps of the Vicariates of the Archdiocese of New York (1992 ed.), showing the location of each church, is available in the Maps Division of the NYPL, part of the NYG&B Collection.
St. Patrick's Cathedral on Mott Street, established in 1809 after the creation of the Diocese, is the city's second-oldest parish. It was the seat of the Bishop (and later Archbishop) until the present St. Patrick's Cathedral was completed in 1879, and since then it has been known as Old St. Patrick's Cathedral. The city's third parish, Christ Church on Ann Street, existed only from 1825 to 1837; its founding priest, Felix Varela, conducted services in the basement of St. Peter's for the first two years, and his records from that period are included with St. Peter's. Christ Church was replaced in 1837 by Transfiguration Church, on Mott Street. In the meantime, five other parishes had been started: St. Mary's on Grand Street, 1826; St. Joseph's in Greenwich Village, 1829; St. Nicholas on East Second Street, 1833, the first German-language parish; St. Paul's in Harlem, 1834; and St. James on James Street, 1836. The proximity of these dates reflects the rapid growth of the city's Catholic population, and after 1837 the growth was even more rapid, until there are now 126 present and former parishes just in the Borough of Manhattan.
St. Peter's Records. The contents of the four reels of St. Peter's records are shown below. The volumes are not numbered, being identified only by the dates they cover; they are numbered below only to show their order on each reel. Records are in the English language unless otherwise stated. Dates may overlap as priests serving together sometimes used separate registers.
CONTENTS OF THE MICROFILM
REEL 1.
1. Baptisms 1787-1822, 72p. Most entries in Latin, some in French (and English). Entries are usually brief: name of child, date of birth, parents, sponsors.
2. Baptisms and Marriages 1820-1827, 44p. Includes records copied much later from a book then held at St. Patrick's Cathedral (50th St.); also Father Varela's 1825-27 record of baptisms "performed by me before Christ Church was open." Many entries are in French. Duplicates some or all of nos. 4 and 5, below.
3. Baptisms 1802-1823, 452p. Some entries in French. Gives dates of both birth and baptism, as is generally the case in later records as well.
4. Baptisms and Marriages 1819-1827, 39p., in French (some Latin), original records.
5. Baptisms 1825-1827, 19p., Father Varela's original record.
6. Baptisms 1823-1853, 391p., some entries in French and Latin.
7. Baptisms 1838-1848, 258p. Mother's maiden name, not usually found in the earlier books, is sometimes given.
8. Baptisms 1853-1857, 247p.
REEL 2.
1. Baptisms 1857-1860, 222p. This is a continuation of item 8 on reel 1. Note that mother's maiden name is not given in these baptisms.
2. Baptisms 1860-1873, 805p. Note the size of this book.
3. Baptisms 1873-1875, 374p. Previous registers were blank books, but this volume contains pre-printed forms for recording four baptisms per page. It is titled Registrum Baptizatorum in Ecclesia St. Petri, and for the first time in many years all of the entries are in Latin. The forms provide spaces for father's and mother's place of birth, the only time that information is supplied in all of these registers, but for the many who were born in Ireland the priest wrote only "Hibernia." Mother's maiden name is not given. A space for notes ("Observanda") was sometimes used to indicate the later marriage of the person being baptized.
4. Baptisms 1875-1877, 93p. Pre-printed with columns for name, date, etc., but not places of birth; mothers are listed with their married names. In a few cases notations of subsequent marriages are interlined. Entries are again in English.
REEL 3.
1. Baptisms 1877-1884, 350p. A continuation of the fourth item on reel 2.
2. Baptisms 1884-1892, 275p. Mother's maiden names are given from this point on. Some subsequent marriages noted.
3. Baptisms 1892-1906, 263p. There are more notations of marriages than before; also notes of baptisms of converts, with previous religion [there are some such notations in earlier volumes, also notes of "conditional" as opposed to "absolute" baptisms, and children born out of wedlock].
4. Baptisms 1906-1908, 13 p. Similar to item 3; filming of baptisms ended here; late records available only at the church.
REEL 4.
1. Trustees' Minutes 1789-1810, unpaginated. See below for more on the Trustees.
2. Trustees' Minutes & Accounts 1841-1852, unpaginated, very brief record.
3. Marriage Register 1802-1850, 431p. Mostly just date and names of bride, groom, and witnesses, but there are occasional longer French entries as shown below.
4. Marriage Register 1850-1878, 633p.
5. Marriage Register 1879-1908, 436p. All of these marriage registers were blank books, and entries are freeform.
6. Records of the Building Committee 1836-37, 53p. Construction of the present church. at 18 Barclay Street; very detailed, including much accounting.
7. Letter of Mother Seton 23 July 1794. An original letter of Elizabeth Bailey Seton to her husband William M. Seton in Philadelphia. A convert (in 1805), she founded the American Sisters of Charity of Saint Joseph, and was canonized as the first American-born saint in 1975. On her ancestry see NYG&B Record128 (1997): 145-152.
Indexes
The number of pages in the volumes indicate the enormous number of names that they contain. Unfortunately they are almost entirely unindexed. Some volumes begin with an index section, but these are largely blank. The only volume for which more than a handful of the records was indexed is item 3 on reel 3 (Baptisms 1892-1906) where about 90 of 263 pages have been indexed.
Published Versions
Two attempts have been made to publish St. Peter's records. Beginning in 1899 the Rt. Rev. James H. McGean's transcription of "The Earliest Baptismal Register of St. Peter's Church, New York City" was published in the U.S. Catholic Historical Society's Historical Records and Studies, vols. 1-3. In 1980 Constance Denise Sherman's "Baptismal Records of Saint Peter's Church, New York City, 1787-1800" was published in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly vol. 68, although the entries are alphabetized rather than appearing in their original order.
It goes without saying that more of these records should be indexed and/or published (with appropriate permission).
Cemeteries
None of St. Peter's records at NYG&B relate to death or burial, nor are any such records listed by the WPA. The researcher must rely on the city's death records, newspaper notices, and later cemetery records for this information. Like all of the city's houses of worship, St. Peter's at first buried its dead in its own churchyard. This was also the practice at Old St. Patrick's, where burials in the surrounding ground (as well as under the church) are still extant. In 1817 a larger Catholic cemetery was opened between 11th and 12th Streets and First Avenue and Avenue A. It was used until about 1851, and existed until 1909 when all remains were removed to Calvary Cemetery, which had been opened in 1848 in Queens County. For further information see Suzanne McVetty, "Catholic Cemeteries in New York City," The Irish at Home and Abroad 3 (1995/6): 38-41; and Rosemary Muscarella Ardolina's two books of inscriptions, Old Calvary Cemetery (1996) and Second Calvary Cemetery (2000).
In 1836, when they were about to start excavation for construction of the new St. Peter's Church, the Building Committee (item 6, reel 4, above) noted that "Our trustees are strongly desirous that the earth with which are commingled the ashes of those, to whose labour, liberality, and zeal is due the erection of the first Catholic church in this state, should not be used to common purposes." They therefore proposed moving this earth to St. Patrick's, whose trustees accepted "a portion into their ground at the Cathedral," the rest to go to "their burying ground," presumably referring to the cemetery on 11th Street. The committee's records show that a contractor was hired to remove all of the soil down to a certain depth, and this was moved by the cartload to the new locations. If they followed the practice of other city churches that engaged in similar moves at the time, the trustees may have first attempted to contact families of those whose graves were identifiable, giving them the opportunity to move their relatives' remains and gravestones; but there must have been a large number of poorer parishioners whose graves had never been marked.
Trustees
When St. Peter's was founded, New York State law required that each house of worship choose a Board of Trustees, and specified the Board's authority in certain matters. While acceptable to many Protestant denominations, this law conflicted with the principles of Catholic church government and caused controversy until it was repealed. Some of St. Peter's trustees' minutes are included in reel 4 of the NYG&B film. The first board was elected on 13 April 1789 and consisted of Dominick Lynch, George Barnewall, Andrew Morris, John Sullivan, Charles Neylon, William Mooney, Thomas Stoughton, Jozé Roiz Silva, and Patrick Farrell.
Ethnic Makeup
As reflected in the list of trustees, the first parishioners of St. Peter's were largely Irish (Roiz Silva was a New York merchant of Portuguese origin). However, 1789 marked the beginning of the French Revolution, which precipitated the slave revolt in Saint-Domingue (Haiti) and caused an influx of refugees to New York, as a result of which St. Peter's acquired many French parishioners. Their presence is indicated in the registers for many years, but as the 19th century progressed the parish returned to being largely Irish.
The French and Irish priests who kept the registers in the early years came from different record-keeping traditions, as can be seen in the box below.
Access to Records of Other Manhattan Parishes
The records of three Manhattan parishes are available through the Family History Library in Salt Lake City: St. Raphael's, 504 West 41st Street, 1886-1975; St. Clare's, 436 West 36th Street, 1903-1940; and SS. Cyril and Methodius, 552 West 50th Street, 1910-1980. These registers (or copies of them) were filmed at the Croatian Ethnic Institute in Chicago, although the WPA Inventory does not indicate any Croatian connection for the first two churches.
For other parishes one must usually request transcripts directly from the parish, by mail. For two views on access to these records see B-Ann Moorhouse, "Researching the Irish-Born of New York City," NYG&B Record 112 (1981):65-71; and Charles Thomas Galbraith, "Root Cause: Catholic Records and Genealogical Research," The Irish Echo, March 13-19, 1991, pp. 86-87, 99.
Other Nearby Areas
For an excellent description of records in Brooklyn and Queens see Sister M. Caritas Bonifer, "Catholic Church Records, Diocese of Brooklyn," The Irish at Home and Abroad, 3 (1995/6): 172-176. See also on this website additional research guides by Harry Macy, Jr.:2q "Brooklyn/Kings County Church Records Since 1783," and "Religious Records of Queens and Nassau Counties,"
Brooklyn is the only diocese where some of the extremely informative marriage dispensation records have been made accessible. With the permission of the Bishop, genealogist Joseph M. Silinonte began abstracting these records; see his Bishop Laughlin's Dispensations, Diocese of Brooklyn, vol. 1 1859-1866 (1996). Many of the marriages involved a bride or groom from New York City (Manhattan).
Across the Hudson River in New Jersey, the Archdiocese of Newark moved most of its original parish registers to Seton Hall University, where the Genealogical Society of Utah was permitted to film them. They therefore can be accessed through the Family History Library, as can registers from the dioceses of Buffalo, Rochester, and Ogdensburg in upstate New York. One can hope that improved access in some form will eventually be possible for the rest of New York State.
Two Ways to Record a Marriage
Entries in the early registers of St. Peter's reflect two different record-keeping traditions. French entries are usually rich in detail, like this one from February 1803, translated from the French:
Jean Antoine Guenet, an adult of full age, legitimate son of the late Antoine Guenet, merchant of the Island of Guadeloupe, and of Madame Angélique Marie Broche, now of Guadeloupe, & Mlle. Marie Anne Sophie Chaveteau, also of age, the legitimate daughter of Joseph Chaveteau and Mme. Elizabeth Sophie Broche.
Three witnesses are also named, and there is a statement in Latin that there was a dispensation from the Bishop because of a second-cousin relationship.
To anyone who has seen parish registers from France this type of entry will seem familiar. Most of the marriage records at St. Peter's are very simple by comparison, resembling those often found in American churches. This example from the same month, February 1803, is typical:
Bartholomew Muclewie Mary Kelly witnesses Philip Kelly Mary Kelly and others
by Harry Macy Jr., FASG, FGBS
Originally published in The NYG&B Newsletter, Winter 2002
Updated September 2011
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