Let’s turn our attention to the baptismal register for the German Lutheran Church in the Robinson River Valley. It may not be obvious at a first reading, but we can be thankful that the Lutherans of that day did not prohibit blood kin from serving as spiritual kin. Not only did they allow blood kin to serve as sponsors but they seem to demand that the sponsors be chosen from relatives of the parents. In fact, this rule is enforced so strongly that it becomes a valuable research tool for us.
The rules regarding the choice of sponsors were not written down anywhere. By a detailed study of the register, one can infer the rules. This takes a lot of work, looking at the known cases first. Then one can apply the knowledge to the unknown cases and infer relationships there; however, a word of caution is appropriate. It is easy to infer erroneous facts, so caution must be exercised.
Basically, the sponsors were brothers and sisters of the parents. The spouses of the brothers and sisters were just as good. Also, first cousins were popular. Again, the spouses of first cousins were as good as the first cousins. Parents, aunts, or uncles of the parents were occasionally used, but only rarely. Friends, i.e., unrelated individuals, are almost never used. In very rare cases, children of the parents may serve as sponsors for other children. The idea behind these choices is that the sponsors were responsible for the spiritual health of the child. Old people were not desired because they might not live long enough. Probably the rule about using relatives was a reflection of the concern that most people show for their relatives.
So strongly were these guidelines used that I have detected errors in the translation of the baptism register because the translated name was not logical. In the most recent case of this, the translated name was Lea Brile. I doubted this and looked at the microfilm records. There I found that the name was really Berler, which is the way that the name Barlow was written at church at this time. When the rule starts showing where the errors are, one can trust the rule to be a valuable guide.
The baptismal register and other registers of the (Hebron) Lutheran church in Madison County are keep under lock and key. They are so fragile that they cannot be used directly for research. One must consult the microfilm, or the translation that was made by George M. Smith. Mr. Smith did a good job, especially considering the difficulty of reading some of the material. But he did make a few errors.
This baptismal register is the only record of eighteenth century baptisms at the German Lutheran Church in the Robinson River Valley. Recent items here about the marriage and baptism records of John Caspar Stöver apply to those made by the son. (The father was in Virginia and the son was in Pennsylvania.) A little of the son’s work was just over the border into northern Virginia, but none of it touched the Robinson River Valley. Some of the confusion has arisen because B. C. Holtzclaw erroneously wrote statements which implied that the son’s work extended to the Robinson River Valley.
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.