The third child which Mark Finks, Sr., mentioned in his will was Elizabeth, whom he identified as Elizabeth Weaver. Popular history says that she was the wife of Matthias, the son of Peter Weaver, the immigrant of 1717. Elizabeth is a special problem because she acts as if she were a Carpenter, not a Finks. What do I mean when I say this?
At church (the German Lutheran church) she sat with the Carpenters and the Weavers. Even on the few occasions when there was a Finks at church, she sat not with the Finks but with the Carpenters and the Weavers. Her behavior is so biased this way that it would be possible to conclude that she was a Carpenter. (Her association with the Weavers would be because of her husband.)
There are two possibilities that I see. One, it was a mistake to say that the wife of Matthew Weaver was a Finks, or, two, she split with her family on the question of religion. I have argued for both of these points, but I am inclined now to the belief that she did not agree with the other Finks family members and broke with them on this question of religion. It may not have been a severe break. Instead she may have found herself, without any of the other Finks family members, at church and the Carpenter family befriended her. There was only one church in town and Elizabeth was going to use it. Since her blood relatives did not make much use of it, she chose the sponsors for her children from her husband's relatives and from the Carpenters.
Elizabeth and Matthew Weaver had children baptized from 1757 to 1780. So Elizabeth would seem to be just a few years younger than Catherine. Between these two there was another name in the will of Mark Finks, Sr. This was Christina, who married Christopher Blankenbaker. They had children baptized from 1754 on, so it was appropriate that Christina was the second name in Mark's will. None of the sponsors at the baptism of these Blankenbaker children were from the Finks' family. This was also true of the Weaver children just discussed. At the baptism of the Crigler children, previously discussed, Finks' family members appear only once for Wilhelm, the last child.
From the early 1750's, three of the Finks daughters have children and only once, in 1778, does the list of sponsors include a Finks. Apparently Christina and Elizabeth attended the baptism of their children. From evidence such as this, one can draw the conclusion that the Finks family was opposed to infant baptism at the Lutheran church. The question for us is, "Why?"
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.