| Notes about the Church |
"Despite years of attempted suppression Norwich retained a substantial Roman Catholic congregation, albeit one that was relatively clandestine until attitudes softened. The chapel in Maddermarket was erected in 1794 reflecting that moderation which was finally totally relaxed in Victorian times. The chapel shows that Norwich had substantial populations of Irish background as well as foreign residents and
visitors beyond the regular Catholic families. A sprinkling of traditional Norfolk surnames also indicates that many families dabbled in the faith at times. The surviving two registers collected and transcribed here are filmed on Microfilm MFRO618 in the collection of Norfolk Record Office, this film is a relatively recent production
benefiting from crisp and clean images and, quite frankly, it needs to have been. The records are entirely written in Latin, Anglicised here
for ease, and the handwriting is almost universally poor, the spelling equally so, such that, at times, common surnames may be almost
unrecognisable. This was a very tricky transcript to prepare and there are liable to be errors and misreads as a result, users should treat with a degree of caution. The registers also contained a number of adult baptisms without sufficient detail to benefit family historians, the baptism of John Smith on a particular date, for example, with no age or parentage is of little genealogical use and they have been omitted." |
Those periods with zero data may span several decades. The first may include pre 1530 records.