Source Information

Ancestry.com. Brooklyn, New York, U.S., St. Paul's Catholic Church Marriage Records, 1839-1900 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2008.
Original data: James R Reilly, comp. St. Paul's Roman Catholic Church, Brooklyn, New York, Baptism and Marriage Records, Volumes I-II. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: Redmond Press, 1996.

About Brooklyn, New York, U.S., St. Paul's Catholic Church Marriage Records, 1839-1900

St. Paul’s church was founded in 1836 in Brooklyn, New York. It was known as the “Irish Parish” because it served as the focal point for Irish immigrants in Brooklyn during the Great Irish Famine of 1845-1851.

This database contains marriage records from St. Paul’s parish from 1837-1900. The city of Brooklyn did not require the reporting of marriages until 1866. Because of this, the parish records become very important, providing information that would otherwise be found in civil records. Church records can often be used in place of civil records when civil records are either unavailable or non-existent.

Information listed in this database includes:

  • Groom’s name

  • Bride’s name

  • Marriage date

  • Names of witnesses

Notes:

  • Two witnesses were required for a marriage

  • ‘NL’ or ‘Not Listed’ indicates that the name or date is not written in the original record

  • ‘XXX’ indicates that the name or date is completely illegible

  • ‘CXX’ indicates that only the initial letter of a name is legible in the original record

  • Middle names were not transcribed except for ‘Mary Ann/Anne’ to distinguish from ‘Mary’

  • Surnames and given names were transcribed as they appear and were verified in the original registers