Rabat Records Prior to 1902 are in Mdina Parish Records

That was the reply I received on visiting the Rabat parish office earlier this morning.

At first I was hopeful as the parish priest was not in office, and the vice-parish priest was there - who happened to be an acquaintance of mine when he served his deaconship in my town. He recognised me immediately and after some pleasantries I got down to business. Only to be told that the St Paul's parish in Rabat only had records from 1902 onwards - prior to that one has to go to the Mdina parish office. He kindly checked the opening times for me, and informed me that it opens on Mon, Wed, and Fri between 4:30pm and 5:30pm.

Not a very good news for me as I'm free from family obligations (aka baby-sitting or child-minding) only in the morning - and it will mean I have to take the whole family with me in the afternoon. Luckily there's a children's playground nearby so maybe they can spend the hour there. An hour. That too is an issue... with so little time, if there will be other clients at the office, it might take me two visits... and Mdina is quite far from Zabbar... GRRR...