Lois, If you could give me a little more info on this Rowan family I might be able to help you. If you like you can send a report to my direct e mail: [email protected] I will check the St. Mary's records for you and I do have some Rowan's in my line. And, on the next posting, regarding CARSON, if your peeps were Catholic they would have gone to St. Mary of the Annunciation in Lonaconing or St. Gabriel's in Barton. I have some records for both of these churches if I can help you, let me know. Off the top of my head, I don't recall the CARSON name from those records. I also have some Methodist records for Barton Methodist Church, but they have not been transcribed yet, so are not searchable. With regard to the birth records, civil records were not officially kept until 1898 and they can be found at Maryland Archive in Annapolis. Your best bet would probably we be church records to find those early births.