You're welcome, Linda.
The Episcopal church does keep records. Whether there would be anything
so complete as the German Lutheran pastors included in their charter
membership records of my ancestors, I don't know. For that matter, maybe
the ones I have from the German Lutheran churches were just a fortunate
fluke.
If your Luers were Catholics in Germany, and your Voss family were
Lutherans, the Episcopal church was perhaps compromise, and probably one
that happened in America.
Are you 100% sure the couple were married in Germany? Is that something
you have documentation for? Or is it a family story? Family stories are
wonderful and I never disregard any of them, but they are not always
accurate.
Is it possible they were Lutherans in Baltimore, and became
Episcopaliansfor whatever reasonin Bowie?
Sometimes churches have records of membership transfer in their books.
Maybe the Bowie church has a record of the Luers's transfer from their
previous church, and it can lead you to the earlier church to look for
records.
Just some thoughts. Good luck on your search
Marilyn
It would be interesting to see if I could locate a Baltimore church with
any
information. Everything I have seen so far (census and naturalization)
only
says Oldenburg. They lived in Baltimore for about 12 years before
moving
to
Bowie, MD (where some of the family still lives.) I have a lot of info
about their time in Bowie, but next to nothing about Baltimore.
The family attended the Episcopal church in Bowie. Bernard assisted the
German Lutheran Church by allowing them to use several rooms of his house
when they were starting up, but he was never a member. I wonder if they
would have kept any info about him.
It seems that many/most of the Luers families from Oldenburg to US were
Catholic, and I am keeping open the idea that Bernard may have converted
upon marriage.
His wife, Anna, owned an 1802 Luther Bible (still in the family), so she
seems to have been Protestant from childhood.
Thanks for the tip!
Linda
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