The Roman Catholic Diocese of Salford was formed at the Restoration of the Hierarchy in 1850 and covers most of South East Lancashire from Greater Manchester in the South to the Ribble Valley in the North and today has 182 churches and chapels within its borders.

The Salford Diocesan Archives (SDA) are based at St Augustine's Church, Grosvenor Square, Manchester and as the official historical repository of the Diocese hold an extensive collection of material related to the Catholic history of the area, as well as a comprehensive library related to English religious history.

In 2010, the SDA began a project to digitise certain aspects of the archive holdings and to release these on Digital Data CDs for use by genealogists and historians across the world. The collection available to buy on this site shall increase gradually as more discs and data are prepared and made ready for release.