Pauline: In earlier days when communication was much slower, a church member who was moving to another area would be given a letter of recommendation to take along to present to a church in the new location. This facilitated transferring membership from one church to another and eliminated any questions about the member's baptism & etc. This was/is usually done between churches of like faith and practice. I have noticed in some of the Quaker records that they dismissed members with a letter to a specific Meeting. In recent years the practice has changed a little bit. Most of the churches will no longer give the letter to an individual but will wait for the member's new church to write for the "letter." And some churches today will simply write to the member's previous church and inform them that the member has joined them and advise the previous church that they can drop the member from their rolls. You will also see some church records indicating that a member was "dismissed with a letter." I hope this helps some. Thurmon TSFA Historian On Tue, 9 Mar 2004 10:28:50 -0700 "Pauline" <psp@xmission.com> writes: > Thank you Therman. Some of this I did not understand but it raises a > question in my mind. In some of the church membership records it > says, "by letter". Is this what it is meaning? > > Pauline

>Thank you Therman, Yes it does help a lot. I understand what I am looking at a lot better. I appreciate your taking time to tell me these things. Pauline