Judy, The 1799 Botetourt Brethren signers did use the name "German Baptists" to describe themselves in the petition, but they did not go beyond that term except to say that they were "Inhabitants of the County of Botetourt." At that time Botetourt was a very large county, including all of what is now Roanoke County. The Peters Creek Church on the north side of Salem, VA, became one of the better known Brethren churches in the area during the mid-1800s. As early as 1780 there was a concentration of Brethren in the Amsterdam-Daleville area of Botetourt south of Fincastle, but there was no organizational name given to it to my knowledge. Dwayne -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of J.A. Florian Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2011 1:36 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [BRE] (no subject) > > In a message dated 3/28/2011 12:30:33 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, > [email protected] writes: > > Many migrated to Botetourt around 1790 from Eastern Pennsylvania. As far > as I know, they did not have an organized church name. > > Dwayne Wrightsman Other migrating groups going from Frederick Co MD to Washington Co PA also didn't use what we'd expect to see as an "organized church name". But in official county records from 1810s and up, they called themselves "Fraternity of German Baptists", Later, the location name was added (at front or back), and ' Fraternity of ' was dropped, so they were "(Location name) German Baptists" or "German Baptists of (Location name)". Of course, "Church of the Brethren" was officially adopted later. Maybe the Botetourt group used the same or similar naming convention? If I hadn't widened my name search, I never would have found "Fraternity of German Baptists" used in deeds. Whichever ways the "parties" are written in the Deed is how they are indexed. So it might be worth it to check the Botetourt Deeds for entries of "Fraternity of German Baptists", "Botetourt Fraternity of..." or "Fraternity of G.B of Botetourt". Judy ------------------------ Search the Archives at http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/BRETHREN ------------------------ Support Our Sponsoring Agency The Fellowship Of Brethren Genealogists (FOBG) For further information contact Ron McAdams mailto:[email protected] ------------------------ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message