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| Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. |
My latest feature for Your Family History magazine (November
issue) is on tracing Roman Catholic ancestors.
In 1534 Henry VIII severed the country’s links with Rome and
the Pope, and the Anglican Church was born. Elizabeth I confirmed the Anglican
Church’s status with the Act of Supremacy (1559), and the introduction of the
Book of Common Prayer.
Although there were penalties for ‘recusancy’, Roman
Catholics wished to be baptized and married according to the rites of their
church. Lancashire families in particular clung on stubbornly to the ‘old
religion’. So your Catholic ancestors may have been baptized, or married, once
in an Anglican church, and again in a Catholic church in secret.
Things improved for Catholics following the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829.
Things improved for Catholics following the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829.
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| Furness Abbey. |
I’ll be exploring this subject further in Tracing Your Manchester and Salford
Ancestors, which will be published by Pen and Sword in the spring of next
year. In the meantime, the MLFHS website has a free list of RC churches in Manchester and Salford, with addresses and dates of their opening
and closure, and name changes.
Images:
Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, consecrated in 1967. © Sue
Wilkes.
Elizabeth I. Pictorial
Record of Remarkable Events, (Frederick Warne & Co., 1896).
Chapter House, Furness Abbey. Engraved by R. Sands from a
drawing by T. Allom. People’s Gallery of Engravings Vol.2 (Fisher, Son &
Co., 1845).
