One of the joys of researching one's family is discovering how they interacted with history, even effected history. The Beller family is one of those pleasant surprises to researchers. Their history has touched the entire nation in many ways beginning with their desire to find a land where they could worship as they pleased.

The early Bellers were considered to be Swiss Mennonites based on their origins in Switzerland. The Mennonites came about due to a theological debate regarding baptism and children. It has always been the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church that infants should be baptised as early as possible. The Anabaptists rejected this doctrine because a child cannot commit to a religious faith. They instead supported what they called believer's baptism or baptism as an adult capable of making an informed choice. The Swiss Mennonites are the oldest and possibly the most influential body of Anabaptists.

Many early Reformation Protestant sects embraced this belief including the Hussites, the Wallons, the Waldensians and the Moravians. Others, principally the Lutherns, Dutch Reform, Anglicans, and Presbetarians, continued to embrace infant baptism. The Puritan Congregationist Church in New England was particulary vemonous regarding Anabaptism. Violence between Baptists and the Anabaptists was quite bloody at times.

The Anabaptists were accused of denying the Incarnation of Christ: a charge that Menno Simons (from whom the Mennonites originate) repeatedly rejected. The Anabaptists condemned oaths, and also the reference of disputes between believers to law-courts. The true believer must not bear arms or offer forcible resistance to wrongdoers, nor wield the sword. No Christian has the jus gladii; which literally means "the right of the sword", referring to the legal authority of an individual or group to execute someone for a capital offense. Civil government (i.e. "Caesar") belongs to the world. The believer, who belongs to God's kingdom, must not fill any office, nor hold any rank under the government, which is to be passively obeyed. Sinners or unfaithful ones are to be excommunicated, and excluded from the sacraments and from intercourse with believers unless they repent, but no force is to be used towards them.

Naturally, such pacifism in a world where Protestants were under attack by Catholics, could not be tolerated. Naturally, the pacifists sought refurage in the one land where they could be free, America.

While the Bellers were considered by most researchers to be Mennonites, they were closely allied with Moravians who were direct descendants of the Hussites, the oldest Protestant movement in the Reformation. The symbol bordering this page is the Moravian seal as rendered in English by North Carolina artist Marie Nifong.