Marvin (and anyone else who can help me), You refer to "descendants of the large Lutheran population that came to America in the colonial period and settled along the east coast, especially heavily in the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, Maryland ...." I am interested in a group of Swiss and Palatinates who settled in New Bern, North Carolina, in the early 1700s -- see http://newbern.cpclib.org/research/settlers.htm. In 1740 this group petitioned the colonial government to build a "church or chapel for the use of the High Germans and the Church of England." (Though I can't find the info right now, I believe this group of settlers may have originally fled persecution and settled in England, and then been chosen by the English authorities to establish a "Protestant" presence in the colonies.) The church is today called the Chinquapin Chapel Christian Church. I don't know if this is its original name. I have several questions -- are these Palatinates some of the Lutherans you refer to? Would they have fled Germany and gone to England in the late 1600s/early 1700s due to persecution? I think the church still exists today, but I didn't receive a reply when I wrote for possible records. Is there a Synod in that area that may have them? This is a general question to everyone: Finally, the ancestor I'm trying to get information on is one who signed the petition for the church -- Michael Pickel. Until I came across this reference, I always had understood that the name Pickel/Pickels/Pickles was of English origin. Is there a German name (one suggestion was something like Peuchal) that could have been Anglisized (is that a word?) to Pickel when this group settled in England? Thanks for any help! Susan