Catholic Parish Registers - Confirmations and Communicants

The sacrament of confirmation is generally performed when an individual is a child. In some periods, confirmation may have taken place as young as seven years old, in others as old as 12 years old. These are useful for estimating the age of a child in lieu of any surviving baptismal records.

The information contained in the original registers can be quite minimal, and varies from parish to parish and indeed over time within a parish. At best a confirmation register will record the following:

• name of the child
• date of confirmation
• a confirmation (saints) name taken by the child
• parents' names
• age
• name of the priest or bishop conducting the confirmation.

Example from a confirmation register (click on image to view the full size)

Buckie, St Peter’s: General Register (Confirmations), 1818-1895. MP/16/1/1/1 page 171

Communicant’s lists - rolls of parishioners under the care of a mission or parish priest were often compiled during the course of a year so that the priest would know who was Catholic in his mission or parish. Communicant lists often simply list the name of the individual in a parish and a particular date. Often names can be found grouped together in families and can be a useful (but basic) census substitute.

The information contained in the original registers can be quite minimal, and varies from parish to parish and indeed over time within a parish. At best a communicants register will record the following:

• Name of the person
• Address
• Date of compilation of list
• Relationships to others in households
• Occupation
• Place

Example from a communicant register (click on image to view the full size)

Dundee, St Andrew’s: General Register (Communicants), 1795-1828. MP/39/1/1/1 page 79