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

Question

What were the religions of your ancestors?

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Comments

Catholic on Dad’s side (100% Irish)

Mom’s side ( 50% German, 25% Austrian, 25% mostly English going back to Colonial America): Lutheran, Catholic, Seventh Day Adventist, Congregationalist (“Puritans”) and Rogerenes. Also probable Huguenot.

Rogerenes was a sect founded in 1674 in New London, CT by John Rogers. I am descended from him via Adam Rogers (his illegitimate son, born a slave. Relationship confirmed via Y-DNA in modern times)

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A lot of protestants it seems in the early days.

I was reading the story of an female ancestor charged with heresy and since she would not recant her protestant beliefs was put to the rack until all her joints were pulled away. The king ruled that she was then to be burnt at the stake.

Vale.

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My grandfather and my father were Baptist ministers.  My earlier Quaker relatives fled England to Ireland during the avoid the Insurrection.

Answer 1

Catholics and Lutherans. Way back on one line there are Mennonites.

Answer 2

German Protestant Lutherans all the way to the Reformation. Some of them were Lutheran pastors, like Jacob Böttcher or father-son pastors Nicolaus and Michael, the latter dying in a pest epidemic of 1635 but obviously, some of his children survived or I wouldn't be here.

Answer 3

My 8th great grandfather, John Maxson Sr. was the first Elder of the Seventh-Day Baptist Church in Westerly, Rhode Island (paternal side).

I also have many Dutch Reformed Church (Christian) ancestors from Albany, New York (maternal side).

Many Quaker ancestors out of Pennsylvania and Virginia (paternal and maternal side).

Another line were United Methodists (paternal side).

Comments

Interesting!  I am descended from members of the Seventh Day Baptist denomination in Piscataway, Middlesex, Jersey Colony.

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Some of my Maxson family were also from Piscataway, Middlesex, Jersey Colony. Seems our ancestors knew each other.

Answer 4

Most were Lutherans but one tree branch were Quakers.

Answer 5

My wife, along with both her parents, are of Jewish faith. I myself am a Roman Catholic, as are both my parents. All the makings for an interesting wedding ceremony back in 1999!

Comments

That's me too as my Dad is Roman Catholic and my Mom is Jewish, and they got married at the U.N. building in 1983.

Answer 6

Mom’s side: Swedish, Lutheran; English, Church of England; Danish, Lutheran; Swiss, Swiss Reformed Church (Protestant and Catholic combined), Methodist.

Dad’s side: Italian, Catholic; English, Church of England, Baptist; Scottish, Catholic, Dutch Reformed Church, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Methodist; Welsh, Baptist;

Comments

Wow, what a mix! Could result in interesting liturgies ;-)

Answer 7

before 1600, most of my dad's side were Catholic. Then they became Calvinist Separatist/Puritan. By 1830, most of my paternal direct ancestors had shifted from Congregationalist or Quaker to Freewill Baptist and Unitarian Universalist because they felt so strongly that each person, regardless of race or gender, should be free and empowered to grow and learn to their full potential. I do not know so far back on my maternal Finnish side, but they were Finnish Lutheran in the 1800s. I don't know what indigenous or folk beliefs they held on to.

Answer 8

It seems that most of my recent post-1700) American ancestors were Presbyterian, some of them founders of several churches in Mecklenburg County, NC.

My mountain ancestors were a strong Baptist presence in the Appalachians, founding churches in Macon and Transylvania Counties, NC.

My German ancestors appear to have come from areas that were Continental Reformed (Calvinist), but their descendants drifted more towards the Baptists for lack of any German Reformed churches in what is now Gaston County, NC.

There is a small Anglican strain in my Virginia ancestry.

Answer 9

On my father's side, all of the normal Protestant religions - Baptist, Church of Christ, Dutch Reformed, Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, etc.

On my mother's side, Catholic for maternal grandfather and Lutheran for my maternal grandmother.

Answer 10

My French Canadian sides were primarily Catholic with a few distant Huguenot ancestors. My remaining ancestors were a mix of various Christian religions (Church of England, Church of Ireland, etc).

Answer 11

Discovered my 5^th GGF was a Quaker.  Which reminds that I must check in with the Quaker Project Folks to make sure I’ve done all that I should do for those profiles. Oh how the “to do” list grows ever longer.

Answer 12

The more research that I do the more I learn about the different religions that my ancestors belonged to. Going back to early Pennsylvania, they were mainly Presbyterians and one line of Quakers. My 3rd great grand aunt Hannah Driggs and her husband were part of the LDS Faith that started on the trip westward. Hannah died on the way, and she is buried in Iowa. Among her children are Samuel, Shadrach and Starling Driggs, who are among the LDS pioneers. I love knowing about the different religions that my ancestors have belonged to, and before I joined WikiTree I really knew very little about them or their faiths. 

Answer 13

Father's side is Italian Roman Catholic with some German from Russian Lutherans. Mother's side was Ashkenazi Jewish from Poland, Belarus, and Romania.

Answer 14

Mainly Presbyterian, with some Moravian, and a few Roman Catholic in the mix too.

Answer 15

My ancestors were Catholics before reformation, and Lutherans afterwards. Before Catholicism they may have been all sorts of pagans and worshipers of Norse gods. Most of them have lived in what we call Finland, including areas seized by Soviet Union in 1944. My 13 times great-grandfather Paulus Juusten studied in Wittemberg under Martin Luther and Melanchton, and he attended Luther's burial while being the first Lutheran bishop of Viipuri, Finland.

Answer 16

All Protestant after the Reformation, I assume, but Catholic before in England, and Scotland and Germany. Church of England, Presbyterian, Methodist. The German, Jakob Beste, fought with King William at the Battle of the Boyne in 1692, so I assume he was Lutheran, then Presbyterian.

Answer 17

I am descended from Russian and German Catholics and I believe a few Lutherans who left the church to follow Menno Simon. Now my ancestors are commonly known as Mennonites. Currently while most are following Christian faith, the denominations of their churches vary.

Answer 18

Wendish Lutherans (Noack) from Posen, Germany

Swedenborg - New Church in Australia (Teed)

Church of England  (Shellcot)  Early settlers in Victoria, Australia. Small farming district. Church services in the hall. The whole community was Church of England - just because it was the only church

Answer 19

I am Lutheran and my wife is Methodist. When we got married our agreement was that our daughters would be raised Methodist and our sons would be raised Lutheran. Then we had two daughters. I’ll stop there.

My parents are Lutheran although my father once said that he was really Agnostic.

My maternal grandparents were Lutheran.

My paternal grandmother was raised Roman Catholic and my paternal grandfather was raised Congregationalist. They did not raise their children in any religion, which explains my father’s Agnosticism. Some of my father’s siblings became practicing Roman Catholics and Baptists.

My wife’s parents were Methodist, although my father-in-law had an Episcopalian background.

Unfortunately, that’s as far back as I can go.

Answer 20

The question "What religion didn't my ancestors practice" would produce a shorter answer. Their faiths ranged from 7th-day Adventist to Mormon, Dutch Reformed and Quaker; from Baptist to Church of England and Presbyterian. One set of ancestors went from being Catholics to Mennonites (quite a leap) after moving from Germany to Pennsylvania, another from Judaism to Lutheranism in one generation. Obadiah Holmes, the Massachusetts pastor who was publicly whipped for his beliefs, is my 10th g-grandfather. Edward Wightman, the last person burned at the stake for heresy, is my 11th g-grandfather. Martin Luther is supposedly my 12th g-grandfather, but the connection is doubtful.