When you know the date of your 4th great-grandmother's baptism, but not your own...

One reason I love reading genealogy blogs is that you get great ideas, and so much food for thought.

In my last entry, I highlighted one such great idea that was posted on Turn The Hearts: writing your own life history in an hour.

I was led in trying this to the realization that there are facts and details I don't even know about myself, never mind my 17th century ancestors.

Another blog I love, The Catholic Gene, adds focus to faith in our family history search, and has made me think more about the role of faith in the lives of my ancestors.

Hence the questions: When was I baptized, anyway? And at what parish? St. John or something.

I was baptized in the Latin rite of the Catholic Church, but my family stopped going to Mass when Mom went to work. As a result, I wasn't confirmed until adulthood, when I decided to do so on my own.

So recently, having become the Documentator, I decided to try to get copies of my baptismal and confirmation records by emailing the parish at which I was confirmed and giving them as much info as I had.

I received a reply this afternoon, containing the exact church and date of my baptism and the info that all Catholic sacramental records are kept at the parish of one's baptism; this is something to bear in mind if you're wanting to to track down such documents.

Here are a couple of photos I found online of St. John the Baptist in Quincy, Massachusetts-- the church in which yours truly was baptized: