Lutheran Ancestry

[rockytrails]

Awesome! Another big question. How do you think the european Lutheran Churches view us the LCMS? How do your local churches view the LCMS? IMO I think that the German Lutheran Churches view us as stubborn and rough, meaning we don't have an episcopal structure(I think we should ) and that we hold on to tightly to the BOC. The local churches around where I live view the Lcms just as a catholic church because of the closed communion and the liturgy.

the large german state church would be protestant reformed really not lutheran. since they compomised the sacrament's

But their are really lutheran churches also
http://www.celc.info/?germany01.php
..

 

[QuiltAngel]

The LCMS is in partner with the SELK in Germany. If you can read German here: http://www.selk.de/

There is the Lutheran church that is part of the "State" Church in Germany. My daughter was involved in a SELK church when she lived there for a year. This time around, I am not sure how much she has been involved nor how close to here one is.

 

[LutheranChick]

100% Norwegian here! Both my parents were Norwegian and their parents, etc. My Dad's family traced their heritage back to when they came over from Norway. My mom's is a little less known because her mother died when she was little so she didn't have a chance to get a lot of family history, but as far as we know everybody came from Norway at some point. All Lutheran - that probably goes without saying!

 

[DaRev]

You must be from the "Little Norwegian Synod", aka the ELS.

 

[CaliforniaJosiah]

My mother's side is German Lutheran....

My father's side is a bit of everything imaginable, although he was raised Episcopalian.


As a result, I LOOK pretty Lutheran, I like beer and brats, but I'm not into lime jello and can't bring myself to try lukafisk (or however that's spelled). I never say, "....don't 'ya know?" I don't have a plastic animal on my lawn, and I have no relatives who live in Lake Wobegon (or even in Minnesota). I've not yet been Confirmed, although that's in the works. However, I have studied Pieper at lenth, I own Koehler, Mueller and two editions of the Book of Concord. Any of THAT count?

 

[filosofer]

[FONT= "Book Antiqua"]
My parents were essentially non-Christian (father indifferent/hostile, mother excommunicated LCMS many years ago) and I was raised in a non-Christian home. Interestingly they always drove us to worship, Sunday School, and any church/youth activities, but they never stayed. My grand mothers were both baptized and confirmed Lutheran as adults (when the grand kids came) in the 1940's.

My father never knew his father's family. But in 1979 he found a couple of aunts/uncles (in their 80's) and all of his aunts and uncles were/had been until they died, LCMS members. His father's family came from Windsor, Canada around 1880, and the previous generations left Ireland soon after the Potato famine of 1849.

My father died in 1991, and my mother was reinstated in LCMS in 1992 and has been a faithful member since then. My "younger" brother is an elder in her congregation.

In Christ's love,
filo
[/font]

 

[QuiltAngel]

100% Norwegian here! Both my parents were Norwegian and their parents, etc. My Dad's family traced their heritage back to when they came over from Norway. My mom's is a little less known because her mother died when she was little so she didn't have a chance to get a lot of family history, but as far as we know everybody came from Norway at some point. All Lutheran - that probably goes without saying!

Does this mean you eat Lutefisk?

 

[DaRev]

My mother's side is German Lutheran....

My father's side is a bit of everything imaginable, although he was raised Episcopalian.


As a result, I LOOK pretty Lutheran, I like beer and brats, but I'm not into lime jello and can't bring myself to try lukafisk (or however that's spelled). I never say, "....don't 'ya know?" I don't have a plastic animal on my lawn, and I have no relatives who live in Lake Wobegon (or even in Minnesota). I've not yet been Confirmed, although that's in the works. However, I have studied Pieper at lenth, I own Koehler, Mueller and two editions of the Book of Concord. Any of THAT count?

Have you ever had the urge to say "and also with you" while watching Star Wars?

 

[DaRev]

I was born and raised Roman Catholic, but I'm all better now.

My mother's family was mainly Irish, although I don't know much about her father's heritage. He converted to RC when he married my grandmother. He may have been of German descent, but no one really knows.

My father was raised Episcopalian but converted to RC when he married my mother. His family is mainly English, his grandfather coming from County Durham just before the Civil War. His side also has some Irish, Scotch Irish and German. (Lucille Ball occupies a branch in our family tree somehow.)

As far as I know, I'm the only Lutheran in the bunch.

 

[Jim47]

Well, I've told this story before but I'll try not to make it so boring this time.

I was first raised in the country outside of a very small village of about 200 people or so. Bother of my grand parents lived in this village, and right accross the street from each other. I was always much closer to my dads side. My grandma did much to help raise me from little on up, and I credit her with teaching me about Jesus.

She took me to what I would guess was a little protestant church of no particular beliefs. I remember very little of the services as I quit going there when I was about 7 years old. What I do remeber was taking holy communion which was of course nothing like my WELS church.

When I was about 8 years old we moved 10 miles away and a man my dad worked with invited us to his church, which has been my church ever since. I was baptized at 8 and confirmed at 13-14. I was also married in this church and have been a member for about 51 year now. I am very fortuante to have both of my kids and my grand kids going there as well. So my parents were the first generation Lutherans that I know of, but one thing for sure , I won't be the last, of that I trust to God.

 

[Diane_Windsor]

NordicLutheran,

No Lutheran ancestory in my family that I am aware of-although I do have some German in me. It's probably back there somewhere though

 

[C.F.W. Walther]

Is anyone related to Sven and Oly?

I'm adopted so I don't have any background. Supposed to be Irish/English. I'm only Lutheran by proxy.

 

[Lupinus]

I was born and raised Roman Catholic, but I'm all better now.

And just went for it all the way didn't you? lol

I'm an Italian from NJ....so yeah RCC was pretty much a given. I was baptised but after some bad dealings centered around my Great Grandfathers funeral we were never really church goers. Weren't really before that either but that kind of solidified it.

So I grew up in a RC family minus the church...if that makes sense lol. Then I up and went pagan for a few years. Few years ago I started feeling pulled, resisted, then started looking into it studied various denominations and here I am now going to a LCMS church for the past three months or so and well on my way to being confirmed

 

[synger]

I talked with my dad over vacation, and got some clarification. His grandfather and his uncle were Lutheran. His dad was raised Lutheran. When I asked him what he was raised, he grinned and said "oh, we were raised heathen". He didn't go to church until Mom and he married, and she was Presbyterian. So that's why I was raised Presbyterian.

 

[DaRev]

I'm an Italian from NJ....

You didn't have any relatives in the Solid Waste Management business, did you?

 

[porterross]

NordicLutheran,

No Lutheran ancestory in my family that I am aware of-although I do have some German in me. It's probably back there somewhere though

Hi Diane.

 

[latebloomer]

No Sven that I know of, but there's a Lars and maybe an Ole if you go back far enough. There's a couple of Lena's on the German side.

 

[Lupinus]

You didn't have any relatives in the Solid Waste Management business, did you?

Currently or past?

Currently theres (as I understand) one distant cousin. As for the past there has been a few, ending with Great Grandpa (they were great for giving some cash at the family reunions when I was little) Still people I wouldn't wanna become, but if I had to choose my undesirables I'd chosoe them over the blods or crypts and such.

 

[BigNorsk]

Both sides of my family are 3/4 Norwegian and 1/4 Swede. It's easy to remember because the Swede is a great-grandmother on my father's side and a great-grandfather on my mother's side.

There's a few interesting quirks.

Some guy in France for some unknown reason, traced my one grandmother back to the original King of Norway. That was kind of neat, though we noted his wife was from Finland.

Both my mother and my father have ancestors from a little farm north of Bergen.

I think it goes like this. The man who had the farm married and women and had several children, my father is decended from one of those children. His wife died and he married a widow who had children from her previous marriage. Mom is descended from one of her children. Bergen is where the black plague started in Norway, the area was pretty well depopulated at one time. Many of the farms sat empty for years, they go by the name of Odegard, empty farm.

Before the plague almost all the land was owned by royalty or church or some other absent owner. When the plague hit there was so little income that the owners sold much of their land over the years. So most farms became farmer owned, bondegods (farmer lands).

If a farm stayed in a family long enough, six generations, gradually decreased to 20 years, it became odelsgod. If the farm was sold from the family, there was a period of time during which it could be redeemed by anyone from the family. There were plenty of rules about priorities and such as to who got to redeem if there was a dispute.

One of the family farms of my ancestors is very close to the ski jump for the Lillehammer Olympics. There's quite a few people around here from that area, we belong to an organization of people from the "county," Gulbransdahlen. I found out several of the farmers I work with come from the same area.

A lot of my ancestors when they came to this country spent some time south of Minneapolis in the county of Goodhue before moving on. I don't know what the real connection was but it's a pattern that happens repeatedly.

And I am related to an Ole. Ole Westgard, he was my great grandfather on my father's side, married to Marie. To give you an idea of names then their first three children were, Inga, Petra, and Olga. Inga was born in the old country. Westgard mean "west farm" the name of the family farm in Norway.

Names of people were done by the patronymic system. You had a given name, at least one probably two. Maybe you were Joe Blow. Then you were known by your father's name. Let's say your dad was John. Boys were Johnson, and girls were Johnsdatter. Then came the farm. Let's use the Westgard farm. So the guy in our example would be known as Joe Blow Johnson Westgard. Joe Blow son of John from the West farm.

It didn't travel perfectly to the US so people got known by their father or farm as their last name a lot.

As far as Lutheran, there is both state church and free church in my ancestry.

The most important turn of history actually happened in this country. There were two Lutheran churches one had Sunday school the other didn't. One family changed churches to the one with Sunday school. That eventually caused my father to meet my mother.

That's probably enough family history.

Marv

 

[latebloomer]

Tracking Norwegian ancestry can be tricky. If someone moved, they changed their name to the name of the new farm. If three adult brothers lived on different farms, they'd all have different last names.

I also supposedly have ancestry that goes back to the first Norwegian king. I suspect it's not very unusual.