48 Catholic Diocese of Sandhurst Year in Review 2023 In 2023, Phase Two of the Sacramental Registers Digitisation Project commenced. Since 2016, Diocesan Archivist, Dr Donna Bailey has been working on this project, which initially included a complete audit of all parish sacramental registers, prioritising which registers need to be salvaged first and establishing which parish sacramental registers have been lost or destroyed by fire over time. The first phase of the Sandhurst digitisation project started in 2016 when selected Baptism, Marriage, Confirmation and Death/burial registers from Beechworth, Benalla, St Kilian’s, Dookie, Eaglehawk, Echuca, Heathcote, Numurkah and Shepparton were digitised — a total of 43 registers. In 2023, selected registers from Sacred Heart Cathedral, Nagambie, Euroa, Elmore, Marong, Inglewood, Cohuna, and Tallangatta, totalling 31 books, were digitised and further digitisation is planned for other parishes in 2024. After Phase Two of the project has been completed, approximately 120,000 individual sacramental records in 74 sacramental registers will have been digitised. Digitising sacramental records increases the efficiency with which sacramental records can be accessed and records identified and, importantly, it helps to preserve the integrity of the original ensuring they are kept in From the Archives SACRAMENTAL REGISTERS DIGITISATION PROJECT perpetuity. After the Parish sacramental registers have been digitised, each parish receives all records on a portable hard drive. Parishes are strongly encouraged to use this resource when searching for records. To preserve the original registers, parishes are provided with archival housing to store the register books so they can be permanently preserved. The Catholic Church is one of the richest repositories of genealogical data in the world. Catholic Sacraments not only record names, dates and places, linking people to a specific time and place, they also link people to other people, recording the names of godparents or sponsors, for example. Furthermore, Catholic sacraments such as baptism and confirmation provide information which is obviously not recorded by government organisations. In some places in Victoria, the Church was keeping records before government organisations. This is not so unusual; in many parts of Europe, for example, Catholic registers reach back as far as the 1500s. Every year, the Diocese receives requests from family history researchers and parish historians for marriage, baptism, confirmation, and burial information. Only records over 100 years old (Baptisms) 60 years (Marriages) and 30 years (Deaths) may be released to the public in keeping with civil and Diocesan Policy. The Catholic Church is one of the richest repositories of genealogical data in the world. Every year, the Diocese receives requests for information from family history researchers and parish historians.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTQ0MTI=