Question of the Week: What religions did your ancestors practice? [closed]

Question

What were the religions of your ancestors?

Please tell us with an answer below. You could also answer on Facebook or use the question image to share your answer with friends and family on any social media.

Comments

Christianity has been strong in my family for generations but at some point, they didn't like formal religion and a large percentage in both Scotland and England became non conformists and people who acted out their faith. One of my great grandfathers built a church in Auckland, New Zealand after emigrating from England and called it Church of Christ.

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Well there was a little surprise in store for me and my family. Christianity, was the traditional family religion, but up pops our Jewish genes, not a lot, but they are there! It seems to have filtered down through my father’s line to the sons!

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One of the blessings for me in my genealogy searches is to discover ancestors that shared my Christian faith!  I was reading my G-GFathers Bible (cover to cover) the year that I  found that he had been Circuit Rider (Itinerant Preacher) for the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada…he had preached from this same Bible that I was reading!

There have been many others who were preachers, pastors and deacons in the Christian faith.

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My ancestors, when religion is mentioned seem all to have been protestant Christians of one or another stripe. The least typical were my 2nd great-grandparents and their 5 children, who were Dunkards, similar in some ways to Quakers, Shakers, Mennonites and Amish, and living in Champaign County, Illinois. The term comes from their tradition of full-immersion baptism, or "dunking."

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Baptist, 

Answer 1

Got quite a few nonconformists in my ancestry: Presbyterians and Protestant Dissenters.  I myself am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons).  My ancestors obviously passed down a questioning trait!

Comments

Hi Ross,

Most of my ancestors on my father's side also identified as Dissenters although almost all of their basic details (BDM etc) were registered in Church of England records. This was in London (Tower Hamlets area) in late 1700s/1800s. I did read somewhere that C of E registrations were preferred because Dissenters were shunned by the political establishment (or illegal) and registration with the State church assured more accurate and permanent records being kept within the State system rather than relying on those made by itinerant and sometimes illiterate preachers and often kept in secret.

I understand this was resolved with the advent of the commencement of secular recording in the 1861 census.

Those I have tracked to Australia evolved (if that is the correct word) into what I think we would now know as Baptists or Presbyterians.

I would appreciate any reliable information about the Dissenters and of course any correction to what I've written here would be helpful.

Answer 2

All my known ancestors practiced Christianity.

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Predominant Religions Globally

The five most predominant religions globally are Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism.

Answer 3

At times, it seems like all of them, but, on my father's side, heavy on Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians and, on my mother's side, heavy on Catholic and Lutheran.

Answer 4

On my paternal side, my ancestors were heavily Baptists. One line, the Grahams, of Scottish descent were Presbyterians until they moved to Louisiana and were Baptists.

On my maternal side were the Methodists with one line being Disciples of Christ (Christian Church) where my 2x great grandfather and my grandfather were ministers.

Answer 5

Mainly Roman Catholic or Chuch of England but have Quaker ancestry and a few 'cousins' in the distant past who became LDS John Mercer the bio states he was the only one in the family in fact he has a cousin that also converted (different surname) still researching this line rather large families.  

Answer 6

(Catholic if you go back pre reformation), Church of England, Congregational, Puritan, Quaker, Atheist, Buddhist, Occult (Theosophy, Golden Dawn, A∴A∴) 

Answer 7

The ancestors of 3 grandparents were Lutherans. That fourth grandparent's tree branch were Quakers for the earliest generations that I can track. Once they no longer show up in the Quaker meeting records, I find no mention of them following any religion.

Answer 8

Pretty much all Christian denominations appear in my tree.

My ggg gps Rev. James McNally and Hannah Jones were married Church of Ireland even as they attended Wesleyan Methodist classes. After migrating to Upper Canada in 1825, James was ordained WM and was a circuit rider for many years. Many of their descendants became United Church members when the United Church of Canada was formed in 1925.

My Milks family moved north through New York State along the Vermont border. While in Renssalaer Co., they certainly did business with the Quaker community and my ggg gf gave his religion as “Free Church” on some censuses.

Other ggg gps, Duncan McAllister and Sarah Balmer, were listed as “Seceders” (Presbyterian?) on an Irish emigration list when they moved to Lower Canada in 1834.

While in Lower Canada, my ggg grand-uncle David Moore converted to LDS and migrated to Utah where he became a bishop.

Between initial settlement circa 1800 and 1850+, the Ottawa River Valley was truly frontier with little infrastructure. The families often went the nearest churches and/or waited for missionaries to come through - my gg gm Sarah Jane McAllister (dau. of “Seceders” above) was baptized by a Methodist circuit rider when she was 4.

Answer 9

A few were of less common religions such as Anabaptists, about five centuries ago, and more recently Old Catholics. In one case, another was a Martyr in England and is mentioned in Fox’s Book of Martyrs.

Answer 10

They were Christians.

I’m assuming since I have a long chain of Ulster Scots that they were Presbyterian. I have yet to find anything that proves or disproves that.

As for those that I know for sure, they were pretty much Methodists and Baptists. A few were Quaker.

Answer 11

Mine were Scotch-Irish arriving in American Colonies mid 1700s from the Plantation in Ulster and were mostly hardcore Presbyterian. Several circuit rider reverends in the line.

Answer 12

As far as I know all of them were Roman Catholic, till during my generation not being religious entered the family and at the moment most family members don't go to church anymore or just with christmas.

Answer 13

In all of my research for my family, I've been surprised at how many religions I discovered...American Baptist, Southern Baptist, Conservative Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Quakers, Puritans, LDS, Mennonite, Amish, Church of God, Church of England, Lutheran, Dutch Reformed, Canadian Reformed...but NO Catholics.  Amazing that there are no Catholics considering all the many areas of the world my family came from.

Answer 14

I have Methodist, Baptist, Church of England, and Catholic within my ancestry.  I often find faith swapping backwards and forwards from one generation to another as ancestors get married.

Answer 15

The main one’s are Presbyterian, Church of Ireland and then a few Moravian and Roman Catholic.

Answer 16

Lots of Wesleyan Methodists in my family tree. Mostly Presbyterian on the Scottish side, except for my 2nd great grandfather John Gordon Cameron and his family, who were Plymouth Brethren. Pennsylvania Quakers back on my United Empire Loyalist branches.

Answer 17

Primarily Protestant such as Primitive Baptist, Methodist, Southern Baptist, and Mennonite and Luthern.

I have some Presbyterians, Christian, and Church of Christ and a few Chuch of God or Holiness, but still all Protestant.

Answer 18

Depends on the time and place but a lot or Roman Catholic for my French Canadian side. The rest a variety of Protestant denominations: Congregational, Presbyterian, Anglican, Methodist, Bible Christian (later merged with the Methodists), American Baptist and possibly Quaker.

Answer 19

Every time this question is asked, a bunch of people just repy with "Christian", as though Christianity doesn't include hundreds, if not thousands, of denominations. Even if your immediate family didn't belong to a church or wasn't particularly religious, you can often figure out what branch your ancestors belonged to. My family was mostly Presbyterian and Methodist, with some Southern Baptists.

Answer 20

Our family practiced Catholicism, Protestant, Quaker, There are Huguenots in our  family history and also Jewish also.

Comments

Hi Teresa, you have the closest mix to mine so far!  (I have a sister who is a Catholic and her husband's family were Catholics in Britain from before the Reformation.)  I didn't put that in my answer because the question was only about ancestors, Judith

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Same here. I would like to know how many count Huguenots and Jewish together as ancestors' religions, but I'm not sure how to find out.

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My Huguenot ancestors and Jewish ancestors were on different sides of my family.  They were each distinguished by their own religions.  Huguenots risked death by refusing to go along with the state view of Christianity; many were killed and so others escaped from France to save their lives.  Some of the worst racism and sectarianism in history has been wielded against Jews.  In my opinion everyone should be free to worship according to their consciences, of course.

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I have both Jewish and Huguenot ancestors, Jewish on my paternal Grandmother's Father's line and Huguenots on her mother's line.

Otherwise we are all Anglican and Roman Catholic

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Hello Christine, Marion, Nancy and Teresa,

We all seem to have a similar mix in our families.  Perhaps we should be a little WikiTree twiglet group.