Hi being an Erath County native and attending many churches, singing Conventions, weddings, funerals and other sad occasions, as well as County Baptist Association meetings as a delegate, I would say off hand he was Congregational Methodist, possible Regular Methodist, or Primitive Baptist. Some Primitive Baptists to this day do not believe in professionally educated Ministers- they may be educated as an Engineer or teacher or whatever, but the Pastoral sermons & so forth are learned from Bible study, concordances, & so forth. One Primitive Baptist church at Evergreen- U.S. 67 was very close to Quaker or Amish- an ordained Elder with leadership experience or ability was sometimes present. If he did not feel led to preach, they sang a song or two and sat and read until someone- any man- would felt led, and he would stand and discuss scripture and its applications for 5 minutes to an hour or more, I was told. They met on both Saturday and Sunday once a month. All business of the congregation was done on Saturday. I think some Churches of Christ also have Elders as does the Christian Church which supports TCU all through its moves from Waco to Thorp Springs to Fort Worth. Confused yet? Hope i gave you hunting ground. Erath County church Clerks- not paid secretaries have kept detailed records for 140 years. . County associations or District Bishops could point you to the right one who may still have records, such as Mrs. Caudie Beech Duke kept at Pony Creek. Good luck, Charles Wyly On Tue, 9 Mar 1999 20:02:10 -0500 Frank <frankjax@mediaone.net> writes: >My great grandmother Myrtle SCHOOLER married Rhonel Earl COOK in Erath > >County, Texas on January 21, 1913. The person who conducted the >marriage >was Eld. W. R. SHELBY. I assume the Eld. stands for Elder? Has >anyone >come across this name as a minister and if so what relgion was he? > > ___________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]