In a message dated 5/11/2006 7:37:25 PM Mountain Standard Time, mpettyjohn@comcast.net writes: Aida, thank you. I misspelled Schubert. Would you mind seeing if Schubert is listed. Now that is interesting about Fieber and Gold. Pam has often wondered if we had Jewish ancestors even though Josef's family were Catholic. Mary Mary, There were a few reasons that Jews would convert. One might be because they had an opportunity to tattend a military academy and become an officer but the army would not take Jews. So they converted in order to serve in the army. That would give them a pension, connections and a chance to travel that they would not have in their local communitiy. There are probably several other pragmatic reasons for conversion for personal or familial opportunity. Others may have married a Catholic and converted for the sake of the children or simply stopped practicing Judaism and let their children be brought up Catholic. There were synagogues only in the larger towns and cities (if any at all) and many Jews lived in rural villages as members of a very small Jewish group - maybe only one or two families. Some few may have joined a local church because they wanted their children to be less isolated or because they felt a personal need to participate in religious rites of any kind. Karen