> Does anyone know how far back the records go for St. Martins > Church in Cascade. Also would like the address if anyone would be so kind. > The records appear to go back to 1847 at least. St. Martin's became St. Matthias In 2000 when I received copies of a few pages from a database that they have of the baptisms I had contact with the following person: Shellie Schlemme St. Matthias Secretary St. Matthias Parish Box 699 Cascade, IA 52033 The earliest record for our descendants off of the computerized list was 1847. I don't know if Mrs. Schlemme is still there but she had provided me with the following information: "We only have our baptismal records on computer. The marriage and death are still in their original books. Our records are pretty good, but take into consideration that Cascade is a town of a German Church and an Irish Church. They did not read nor write each others language. So for a lot of information, especially the mother's maiden name, it could be the same woman and her maiden name is spelled a half dozen ways. Come of the maiden names are not even close to the original maiden name, but end up being that person. Through the years, the books have become very worn and they are written in latin long hand by different priests. Some priests have very neat legible writing and others do not. I am told that the priests traveled around to many different towns on horseback and when they returned home they tried to recall all the sacraments performed during their travels, and some were forgotten or the information misplaced." There are some records on the Dubuque County web page for funerals and burials as well as obituary indexes. http://www.rootsweb.com/~iadubuqu/ The Dubuque web page has been invaluable for me. I am also especially appreciative to the late Adrian Aitchison who did most of the transcription and who had originally found obituaries and information for me on his own that led me to finding information on my McMullen family and a complete generation of McGinty's that I had no information on. Kathy Stoneberg http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~kstoneberg/ourfamily.htm