In a message dated 10/22/03 7:28:00 PM Central Daylight Time, shamrock9@socket.net writes: > Does anyone know how people used to "choose" what religion that they wanted > to believe in? Was it simply a matter of whatever church happen to be the > closest or within walking distance? I see that some of my family members > attended a certain denomination of religion and the when they moved to > another area their religion choice or choice of church was different. > Was there that enough of a difference back then that would make people > actually travel further to go to another church verses going to one that was > closer and more convenient for them to attend? > Hi, Sherry! Here's my two cents worth on this subject- My blanket answer would be that "It depends." It depends on what religion the people were born into and how closely or strictly it was followed in their childhood home. Remember that in the very early days of American farm life, there were very few churches around. And even fewer preachers. Many times there were Circuit Riders of different religious groups who would come to an area maybe once per month. The individual little towns might have 20 or 30 followers and the services would be held in one of these people's homes. As time went by and the town's population grew, they might have enough money to build a church but could only afford to have a preacher one Sunday per month. Because of this towns tended to become predominantly one religion. People of that particular faith would move to the town that had the church of the faith they followed. If a person of a different faith moved into this town, they could either attend this church or travel, sometimes quite a long distance, to another town that had a church of their faith. Here again it depended on the strength of their convictions as to whether to "cross over" to this other religion or not. Sometimes distances and/or road conditions prevented them from following their faith no matter how strong they felt about it. I can give you an example of this in my Miller family of Venedy, IL. The mother, who was born Catholic in Bavaria, came to the USA when 10 years old in 1846. She married and lived in Venedy, IL, a small town with only a Lutheran church. The closest Catholic church was some distance away in St. Libory, IL. The Kaskaskia River was an obstacle in reaching this Catholic church. So most of her children were Baptized in the Lutheran church in Venedy. However, I feel she, and maybe her husband, remained Catholic and were probably buried in a Catholic cemetery due to their Catholic beliefs about consecrated soil for burials. I still haven't found them but I will keep digging... Gloria

Gloria, You gave a beautiful answer to the question. I too believe it is with what convictions you have and how strong they are. Charlcy