The Catholic Church Going West

After the Revolutionary War, farmland was becoming scarce for the large Catholic families of Southern Maryland. When they heard the stories of the richness of Kentucky, the first area west of the mountains that opened up to mass migration, many of these families decided to move there.

Join us to listen to this month’s speaker, Bob Frey, who will tell us how he traced his ancestry back to the Catholics who established colonial Maryland, then later migrated to Kentucky and beyond. His ancestors settled the historic, western Kentucky Catholic settlement of Fancy Farm and helped build the St Jerome Church. Frey will discuss his ancestors’ arrival in Maryland from England in the 17th century and subsequent migration to Kentucky in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.