A reader, Minerva Spaulding Howard, writes on the subject of the religion of the Finks family:
"I am a ggggg granddaughter of Marks Finks Sr.(Mark Jr.; Joel Finks; Lucinda Finks, who married Hurt Yager; Joel HenryYager; Charles Lee Yager; and my mother, Margaret Yager Spalding). All the Yagers and Finks (in Missouri) were Baptists, and my Mother always said they were originally Anabaptists. They were plain, simple people with no frills in life but education. My grandfather, who was born in 1860, sent all five of his children to college. . . . I do believe you are correct in saying they were not Lutherans."
Minereva Spaulding Howard .
The question of the religion of the Finks is not settled. There are two points against the thought that Mark Finks was an Anabaptist. One of the tenets of Anabaptist thought is that the church and state should be separated. As a corollary to this, they avoid participation in government. Serving on a grand jury is not consistent with Anabaptist thought. I have already mentioned that Mark Finks, Jr.'s service as a captain in the militia does not sound as if the family were Anabaptist. Anabaptists form the hard core of conscientious objectors during war times.
I was impressed that a Finks family existed in Pennsylvania who seemed to be Catholic, and whose given names duplicated many of the Virginia Finks.
The thought remains that adherence to the Catholic church would not be so strong as to preclude participation in the only German speaking church in the area of Virginia where they lived.
All this is beginning to leave the following possibility. Mark Finks, Sr., was Catholic, and Elizabeth, his wife, was an Anabaptist. The strength of the opposition to infant baptism lay not with Mark, Sr., but with Elizabeth.
Some day (I hope it is my lifetime) someone may sort this all out. But to complete the Finks' genealogy will be a difficult task, as they didn't leave many records at the church. In the near term, I will write about other Finks in the Culpeper Co. area of Virginia that were not descendants of Mark and Elizabeth.
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.