Some of your sources are going to be wrong. That doesn’t mean that the folks who wrote them are bad people. People make mistakes.
Including me.
And sometimes information is faulty.
So don’t just take what you read for granted, even if it’s from a pre-existing congregational history.
I’ve found information that was incorrect a number of times.
A good example is my research about Bethany Lutheran Church of Green’s Creek, Texas (southeast of Giddings).
This particular congregation struggled for most of its existence, and for the last forty years before it closed, it didn’t even have a pastor.
So details are scarce.
One early source I found with information about the church was Robert Koenig’s book, Pause to Ponder: A History of the Lutheran Church- Missouri Synod in Texas (affiliate link*), which was published in 1980.
It’s a fantastic book, particularly if you’re wanting to understand the overall history of the LC-MS in Texas.
But Koenig reports that Bethany closed in the 1940s. And that is incorrect.
I didn’t realize that for some months until I realized that the Texas Wendish Heritage Museum in Serbin had Bethany’s baptism/confirmation/marriage/death records in its library.
And when I started looking at those, I quickly saw that events were recorded right up through 1963.
So clearly the congregation was still active until at least that time.
So check your sources. And double-check your sources. Travel as many avenues as possible to corroborate details!
* If you purchase one of the linked items after clicking on one of the affiliate links, I will be paid a small commission by Amazon at no additional cost to you.