Catholic Archive

I paid a visit to the Scottish Catholic Archive today. Finally. It's right here in Edinburgh, but I've never found the time to get there. They have very limited hours during the week and by appointment only.

All records in Scotland after 1855 are kept in a civil register (which is held at Register House at the National Archives of Scotland and digitized on the Scotland's People website). Records before 1855 were only kept by the churches. So if your family was Catholic, the Catholic archive holds pre-1855 records of their baptisms, banns, and burials (equivalent to births, marriages, and deaths), plus some other scattered notes on things. These pre-1855 records have been digitized, however, and are accessible on the Scotland's People website. The Catholic Church also holds records of post-1855 events, but these have not been consolidated at the Catholic archive, meaning that if you want to see them you must travel to the individual church where the event was registered!! This means the Catholic archive isn't much use to the average visitor. I went anyway.

The archivist was able to help me identify the churches and the people I need to contact about information I'm looking for. The main thing I want to see is a marriage record for Marijona Kisieliute my great-grandfather's sister, her first marriage to Konstantinas Adomaviczia in 1914. The civil record shows that one of the witnesses had the name Kisieliene. The first initial of the first name is either U or A. My hope is that the Catholic record will list the full name. This could link me to another of the Kisielius brothers. I've seen others in the records, but haven't been able to document any connection yet. This is probably held at Holy Family church in Mossend. I've emailed the priest requesting a look.

Kisieliene

Another record I'd like to see is Marijona's second marriage to Juozas Valaitis in 1936. Both are listed as widows on the civil document. My hope is that document will list additional information about the death of her previous husband (I imagine some documentation of death would need to be provided). I actually suspect he was not dead. In the poor relief records that I found, I discovered that Konstantinas was with my great-grandfather when he was sent away under the Anglo-Russian Military Convention. I think he couldn't get back here either. Eventually she re-married. This record was originally recorded at St. John's Church in Glasgow, but St. John's was consolidated into Blessed John Duns Scotus, which should have the record books for St. John's.

Konstantinas is in Lithuania

I also asked about the baptism record for Kazimiras Kisielius Jr from 1918. It was registered at St Luke's, but St Luke's no longer exists, and I was told the records should also be held at John Duns Scotus.

I asked about the marriage of Kazimiras Sr and Sofija Raulinaite from 1917, which was registered at St Luke's.

And I asked about the baptism of Sofija, which I don't actually think happened here. Contrary to what Chute told me, and contrary to what she actually seemed to believe, she was born in Vilnius. She must have been very young when she arrived (since she doesn't seem to have remembered it), so there's a chance she could have been born there and baptized here. The Lithuanian record proves she was born there, but the German records show that she claimed to have been born in "Glashof, Britania".

Birth of Sofija Raulinitis, 17 Aug 1901
(microfilm 604-20-289, pg333v-334z, no 757)

She's even got her birth year and birth month wrong!