valentine thanks for your reply I live in Ohio and have asked in the past about directories and did not receive a response also no access to newspapers from that area and yes - I did write the church - there has been no reply (4 months) nor have they cashed my check - if it's the church I think it is - it is very small and probably don't have time since my request went back over one hundred years - wanted to send something for the help now I don't want to send money willy-nilly without a fairly good idea I'm at the right place thanks for the other guidance and dig I do! as an aside - the marrying parties were Karl Kieper and Emma Freiberg and as I said the families had been in the Black Wolf area for quite some time - about 1883-4 or so for Karl (Charles) and about 1893-4 for Emma cherie On Wed, 14 May 2003 23:02:38 -0500 "... valentine53179" <valentine53179@hotmail.com> writes: > have you contacted the church.. > generally they have some records on who was minister and for what > period of > time... > if the church is no more, i would contact the same denomination > nearest to > it... > for the records... > in this particular case, anything other than the name of the church, > the > name of the mnister or the year is more than is needed... > and since you provided all three i do think you have it covered... > > now if you are asking about the people or parishoners, then you'd > need to > give a bit more...since that is not the case, > i'd say your info and query is right on... > however, there might be the possibility that someone has some > listing, some > data base, something that they cold take a look at for your > surname... > and so it could be in your favor to always include it...just on a > lark... > > here is another idea for ya.... > check an old city directory and look up the church and the > minister's > names... > the directories will tell you who was where... > > and if that does not get you anything, > check on an old newspaper for 1905 > and target christmas or eastertimes... > look at the advertisements for the churches... > they often included the ministers names... > > whatever you do, do not get disgusted.. > bounce back and keep looking... > try everything and keep plugging along... > > valentine > > > > > >> > > > > > > > > > > ________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today!