March 10 — What role did religion play in your family? How did your female ancestors practice their faith? If they did not, why didn’t they? Did you have any female ancestors who served their churches in some capacity?
Like every one else I have my fair share of brick walls in my family research. But from what I have been able to discover, my family is predominantly what is known as Pennsylvania Dutch. That is a mixture of backgrounds but overall people who immigrated to the New World in the 1700's because they were religious extremists that were being persecuted in Europe. They came to Pennsylvania because William Penn had declared it a Sanctuary Commonwealth for people of all religions because he was a Quaker and that was in keeping with his beliefs. My ancestors were from various groups that are often lumped together into a group called Anabaptists. They dressed like Amish people. Some of the various groups are explained in more detail HERE and HERE. I credit the reason I have made so much progress in my family research over the last 15 or 20 years is the vast amount of kind assistance I have recieved from people who are in the church bodies who have descended from these original social groups. But that is also probably why I feel that is the majority of my background. My brick walls could be other religions and I suspect they may well be. Certainly the women of my ancestry that I have identified were very involved with their churches. One 4th great grandmother taught her circuit preacher husband to read the bible in both German and "The English". Many of my female ancestors were pastor's wives. Another fourth great grandmother and her husband are in the picture before showing an example of the clothing these people wore.
Cornelius Sullivan 1814-1898
Maria Morris Sullivan 1824-1899
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