Sacramental Records for the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend in The Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library

by Delia Cothrun Bourne

In the late 1980s, the Genealogy Center was fortunate enough to acquire microfilmed copies of sacramental records for the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend. Consisting of 43 rolls of microfilm, the records cover the early parishes of the diocese in the 14 counties of northeast Indiana: Adams, Allen, DeKalb, Elkhart, Huntington, Kosciusko, LaGrange, Marshall, Noble, St. Joseph, Steuben, Wabash, Wells, and Whitley. The sacramental records include baptisms, first communions, confirmations, marriages, and deaths or burials.

The amount of information included in the parish records varies by time period, parish, and rector. Most records are in Latin, or a mixture of Latin and the most common language of the parish – French in the early records of Sacred Heart parish, Hungarian at Our Lady of Hungary Parish, both in South Bend. Records start with the formation of the parish, as early as 1830, and go to the end of the volumes that were present in the archives during the microfilming process, occasionally as late as the 1970s.

Baptismal records typically include child's name, parents' names, birth date and place, baptismal date, sponsors, and priest. Some records contain notes with the child's death, marriage or other information. Marriage records usually include the principals' names and witnesses. Death records often provide dates of death and burial, birth place, cemetery, and officiating priest, as well as notes which could include hospital of death or where the deceased stood in relation to the Sacraments. As might be expected, the later records include more information. Most are arranged by sacrament and date, and only a very few have some type of index. Also in the set are the University of Notre Dame Campus Cemetery Records, which includes funerals, lot purchases, and a list of those interred.

Selected records of two orphanages are also included in the Diocesan records. St. Joseph's Orphan Asylum and Manual Labor School was founded in 1867 in Rensselaer, Jasper County. At one time, more than 60 children were residents, but in 1876 the boys were transferred to a new facility in Lafayette, and the girls sent to St. Vincent's in Fort Wayne in 1887.

The St. Vincent Orphan Asylum took children from all over the Diocese, and the records are varied. Baptismal records list age, birthplace, parents when known, and sponsors. Some children are listed as foundlings, others as illegitimate or half-orphans, with one or both parents identified, and notations such as "parents divorced in civil court." Occasionally, a baptism was a "conditional baptism," when the priest or caregivers did not know if the child had already been baptized a Catholic, or baptized in a non-Catholic ceremony that would have been valid under canon law. Other notes on the baptismal record could include when, where and to whom the child married many years after coming to the orphanage. Reception records include the date the child arrived at the institution, residence, age, notes concerning parents, confirmation record, from whom the child was received (usually a parish priest or another orphanage but occasionally an identified parent), to whom the child was released, date and place of birth, and death and burial, if the child died in the orphanage. Other records include inmate listings and correspondence, such as the 1931 letter from Mrs. James Plunkett of Kentland, who was searching for information concerning her recently deceased mother, Mary Riley.

For a researcher in northern Indiana, these records can be a valuable vital record substitute. Other researchers might want to examine the material to see what information Catholic records elsewhere could yield.

Article taken from the Genealogy Gems[1]: News from the Fort Wayne Library
No. 39, May 31, 2007