Dear Sherry, Using my German Catholics here in the Detroit area as an example, they settled with other Germans and attended churches that had since been referred to as "German" Catholic. I think I read that with the increase in foreign speaking people, churches were started that had priests who could speak German or whatever the language of the congregation was. This is for the Detroit area. From what I have seen of my Irish Catholics in St. Louis, they too, seemed to live in an "Irish" neighborhood and attended a church where (other than Latin for Mass), the language was English. My mother-in-law's father was German and raised Evangelical/Lutheran but when he married his wife who was Scottish, he must have joined the Presbyterian church since that is what my mother-in-law was raised as. When my mother-in-law lived with her in-laws, the family attended the Congregational church. My husband said that as children, they, too, attended the Congregation church because it was the closest one to their house and they didn't have a car. In later years, my in-laws belonged to the Presbyterian church in Louisville. I don't know why, if it was because they lived closer to that particular church, or the neighbors belonged to it or my mother-in-law wanted to return to the religion of her childhood. My neighbors who immigrated here from Yugoslavia drive somewhere between 20 & 30 miles to attend the Orthodox church on the east side of the Metro Detroit area. My opinion would be that you would more likely find people who were "Protestant" joining a Protestant church that was not the denomination that they were raised in rather than see them join a Catholic or Orthodox church which happened to be in the neighborhood and that Catholics and Orthodox would seek out a Catholic or Orthodox church to attend even if it meant travelling a distance to attend church or having to wait for a missionary on horseback to make the rounds. Georgia Sherry Corder wrote: > 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? > > Just curious. > > Thanks > Sherry > > ==== MO-STLOUIS-METRO Mailing List ==== > Search the Archive of Messages for MO-STLOUIS-METRO Mailing List at http://listsearches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl?list=MO-STLOUIS-METRO