Cheryle,
Thank you for your timely post! This may finally prompt me to pay the extra fee for Ancestry's international service, in addition to the U.S. subscription I've had and enjoyed for a number of years. Previously, when I've wanted to search for, say, an 1819 census entry in Mecklenburg-Schwerin, I've merely visited my public library and viewed the library edition of Ancestry as one of the "research databases" available to me as a library card holder. My limited and infrequent needs did not merit paying for direct access. However, having modern parish records available means that I can look for descendants of some of my Mecklenburg families and perhaps link up with other researchers, both German and American to be sure, but perhaps those in yet other countries as well. This is best done from home. Kudos to Ancestry for their broad interest in expanding the records available to us!
And, while I'm on that subject, I will mention something else I've heard. This Fall I've expended a number of hours in creating a research database from American Civil War records now housed in Kansas City at the Central Plains Region of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The database will present 1,714 pairs of names: (1) men who were recruited from north St. Louis wards and St. Louis County townships to take the place of (2) other men who were subject to the draft in 1864-65. Many of the names are obviously Germans, even though the given names have been uniformly Anglicized in the original records. This database is to be made available through the St. Louis Genealogical Society and the NARA Archival Research Catalog (ARC), once necessary approvals are obtained. But I've heard that Ancestry may also be interested. (!!) That's important for two reasons. First, because many of the draft-eligible men seeking "substitutes" were from other states to the east (as far as PA, NY & MA) and their descendants will be surprised to find them in St. Louis records. Second, because the Germans who appear in the records may be recent arrivals in St. Louis, either directly from Germany or indirectly after first living in eastern states. Often, new immigrants did not show up in the records until either a Federal decennial census was taken (or until they could marry and/or buy property); these records are from mid-decade. Of course, this will also represent a time before many immigrants from Mecklenburg appeared in the United States -- but it may help those whose families did arrive before the war. And, because of the different dialects spoken at the time, northern Germans tended to reside in north St. Louis, while southern Germans frequently chose south St. Louis.
In closing, I have a question for you. You listed several surnames at the end of your post to the list, but did not specify the location of the parish record that you found. Where is that place, and have you only found your family(ies) in that one village or town, or have you been aware of (or just discovered) migrations within Mecklenburg? I ask that because, in my own family research, I have found that there was significant movement starting in the Napoleonic years and extending through emigration, while the 18th century was a time of comparative stability. What I do not know is whether or not a certain "restlessness" was characteristic of those families that eventually emigrated. I would welcome hearing from you (and others) on this point.
Gordon, in Kansas City