Audrey Geer Masalehdan will learn more about the Harmonists this weekend when she attends a reunion of 40 people, some of whom can trace their ancestry to the 2,000-member Christian community whose followers eagerly awaited the second coming of Christ.

The Harmonists, who believed that human beings were born with original sin, were influenced by the German mystic Jacob Bohme, whose teachings were, in some ways, at odds with the Lutheran Church. Bohme believed that human beings had to fall from a state of grace into sin and learn about good and evil before they could evolve into a new state of redeemed harmony.

While the Harmonists believed a great deal of Lutheran theology, they also embraced communalism and mysticism, which the Lutheran church frowns upon even today, said Roberta Sunstein, a museum education supervisor at Old Economy Village in Ambridge, where the descendants of a splinter group of Harmonists will gather.

Mrs. Masalehdan, of Point Breeze, knows she is a fourth great-granddaughter of Anna Elizabeth Henrici, who never joined the Harmony Society. But Anna's brother, Jacob, a leading Harmonist, improved the community's fiscal fortunes while tending to its spiritual needs between 1868 and 1892. He also was president of the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad.

In 1825, the Harmonists settled on the banks of the Ohio River and created the town of Economy, then spelled Oekonomie. They hoped to create a utopian community, where property was held in common and members farmed, ran their own textile mills and made their own furniture and clothing. While the Harmonists made and consumed wine, tobacco use was prohibited.

Seven years after founding Economy, a third of the 800 Harmonists left the community because they did not wish to remain celibate. It is the descendants of these dissenters who will visit Old Economy Village this weekend.

Jacob Henrici's family, Mrs. Masalehdan said, emigrated from Grosskarlbach, a town in western Germany.

"I found an interesting cousin through the Internet. Her name is Amy Henrici. She is, in fact, the collections manager of the big bone room at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, which I think is really interesting because Jacob Henrici put together the first natural history museum west of the Appalachian Mountains," Mrs. Masalehdan said. The museum has since been re-created and is a permanent exhibit at Old Economy Village.

The Harmonists prized learning, hard work, music, gardens and simplicity.

"Jacob came over with his whole family. They settled around him in Ambridge, Beaver and Sewickley. He didn't mind that they didn't join the Harmonists," she said, adding that she owns a handmade Windsor-style wooden chair that belonged to Jacob Henrici.

She also learned that a niece of Jacob Henrici's was one of the founders of the First Unitarian Church in Shadyside.

Like the Harmonists, Mrs. Masalehdan said, many members of her own family "were religious explorers. They were never just accepting of what was handed to them."

The reunion begins at 1 p.m. Friday at Old Economy Village. Visitors will take tours of the community and see an exhibition called "Out of Harmony: Secession From the Harmony Society." Other activities will continue throughout the weekend, including a walking tour of Monaca, where many of the dissenters settled.

Ms. Sunstein said people attending the reunion are from Michigan, Virginia, Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina and Oregon.