Propose Imaging Projects
Hello,
I have been asking around about getting Brzostek (Diocese of Tarnow, Poland) church records imaged, Mercallo (Archdiocese of Milan, Italy; Province of Varese) church records imaged, and Premeno (Diocese of Novara, Italy; Province of Verbania-Cusio-Ossola) church records imaged. I emphasize my interest is to get them imaged not indexed. I got several replies but one person suggested I mention it here to propose it to those of you who do imaging and/or indexing. All three dioceses were rural in the old days with small populations. Tarnow and Verbania are still very rural. They would seem simple projects. It would be awesome if this is at all possible. Thanks!
Joshua
Answers
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Permission would be required from the Roman Catholic Church, and that is unlikely to happen. In 2008 and again in 2014, the Vatican issued instructions to cease allowing the LDS Church to digitize the records.
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As @Áine Ni Donnghaile 's answer touches on, the permission of record owners is required before their records can be filmed. While millions of Catholic records were filmed in the late 20th century, and most still are available on the FS website, the Vatican's more recent policies make it less likely that the parish (or diocese, depending on which of them legally owns the records) would agree to FamilySearch digitizing their records. I would also note that the Catholic hierarchy is still reasonably Italian-centric, which makes it more likely that the Italian churches you mentioned would refuse permission, since the policy came directly from the Vatican in Rome. The Polish church might give permission (there are plenty of Polish Catholic records on FS), but it will depend on whether they remember the Vatican's policy and the personal opinion of the local priest or bishop.
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Hello,
I am familiar with the Vatican's decision. The reason is Family Search technically promotes another religion. I have several thoughts. The first is Family Search could secretly set up Catholic Search and screw over the Catholic Church in a few years but I would violate the theology as a Catholic if I were to promote it. It is an example to relay what would be seen as ideal to the Catholic Church. The best compromise I can think of pertains to the endless misinformation about the Catholic Church on the internet. A compromise with the Vatican might be as simple as including an out-of-place page on Family Search truthfully. While it would still technically violate Catholic theology, it might be enough. In the United States, the Catholic Church has seen many Protestant pastors become Catholic after seeing through the misinformation including many Mormon bishops. Quite a few have a good website out there. I hope these thoughts might be helpful.
Joshua
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While off-topic for FamilySearch, FindMyPast recently has had considerable success in digitizing RC records from a variety of dioceses/archdioceses in England and the United States. Some of the records they have been allowed to put online are from older b&w films but they have also been able to do modern digital color photography for some records.
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I don't think FS would ever agree to having links to pro-Catholic websites on their own website. This also probably wouldn't satisfy the Catholic Church either. The only sort of compromise that might work in my opinion is one similiar to that made with Jewish congregations. Under that agreement, Latter Day Saints must refrain from giving ordinances to victims of the holocaust unless they have living LDS descendants.
But as much as I know it is frustrating when the records of individual Catholic parishes are unavailable, I feel that trying to negotiate a special deal with the Vatican may backfire. It will remind the Catholic Church that millions of their records are on FS despite their policies, and may prompt them to order their immediate removal from the website and the FHL. I know from personal experience this would be particularly devastating for German research, since these records often aren't on any other website and German is the most common ancestry of Americans. I'm sure there will be other countries whose Catholic records are available exclusively or near-exclusively on FS. So it may be better to be happy with the Catholic records we have rather than risk it all.
Finally I will note that in December 2019 I wrote to the Catholic Bishops of Conference of Ireland, lamenting the poor conservation of Catholic parish records there, and urging them to consider letting Matricula, a website of mostly Catholic records, digitize the records. I received no reply. So instead I started a petition, which has received over 1000 signatures: https://www.change.org/p/irish-catholic-bishops-conference-preserve-and-protect-irish-catholic-church-registers
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I feel that the risk of failure is very high, and urge you to reconsider. Once I did something similiar with respect to Protestant records from the state of Hesse in Germany. These records were available on FS only to Latter Day Saints. I contacted them and asked why would they impose such a restriction- it made no sense that their own members could not access the records but LDS could. They responded and said they had not authorized such a restriction. So I contacted FS and told them about this, hoping that non-LDS would be able to get access. They got their legal team to look at the contracts involved, and found that they should never have published the digitized films. So FS immediately removed the records from their website, and now you have to go to the FHL in Salt Lake City to view the microfilms. So LDS users lost access, and non-LDS did not gain anything.
If you want to do something, then firstly I suggest not trying to get them to let FS digitise records, but rather secular websites such as Matricula, Ancestry.com, FindMyPast etc. As @Áine Ni Donnghaile mentioned, there is already a relationship between some English-speaking Catholic dioceses and FindMyPast. And secondly, it would be better if there was a group or society of Catholic genealogists that took this action, so that the Church knows that many of its members are genealogists and do not want to lose access to records.
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Hello,
I appreciate the depth of your insight. I feel I have an exceptional ability to negotiate but I understand what you mean by treading carefully. On a final note, there is an incomplete Diocese of Tarnow records collection on Family Search. Maybe you can finish it? I don’t know but it is the final thing I can think of on this subject and only do if it is safe. Thanks!
Joshua
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