Burial, Marriage, and Baptism Record Transcriptions Copyright© by Gloria Dettleff
St. Mary Catholic Church
Trenton, Illinois
The church is located at 218 West Kentucky Street, Trenton, IL 62293
There is a map of the cemetery at the end of the burials.
This church was originally known as The Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary (PBLM). It is now simply called St. Mary Catholic Church not to be confused with the St. Mary Catholic Church of Carlyle, IL.
This Trenton, IL church started in 1858 when a priest would say Mass in people's homes and in the local public school. As the number of parishioners in this coal-mining town increased, a church was built. It was at this time in 1864 that Baptisms and funerals began to be recorded. Marriages began to be recorded in 1866.
A permanent pastor came in 1868 with priests from Aviston, Breese and Highland, Illinois serving until that time. Over the years priests from these other cities would record entries in the St. Mary of Trenton church books. Most of the priests who served St. Mary and the other surrounding parishes were of German origin. Because of this, certain spelling variations are evident in these records. It is also obvious that some of the records were written into the St. Mary record books from other sources. This is noted due to the entries being out of date sequence. The spelling variations are mostly due to the German practice of interchangeable letters. For example, a B could be used where a P was used; a T=D, V=F and so on. Also, since these priests were of German origin the Irish last names are spelled phonetically. For example, Mc Goglin and Mc Gloglin could equal the current spelling of Mc Coughlin. One record entry could have several different spellings of the same name. This was perfectly acceptable as standardized spelling was a long way off. However, because of this one must be inventive when searching for ancestors.
These records were transcribed in good faith using the online LDS site for Illinois, Diocese of Belleville Parish records. They can be found here: https://www.familysearch.org