You wrote:
“The Waldensians who left their historic home in the Cottian Alps for religious freedom in the late nineteenth century aren’t.”
But they’re still Protestants nonetheless for they abandoned their own previous beliefs for Protestantism. Just read Euen Cameron’s The Reformation of the Heretics: The Waldenses of the Alps, 1480-1580 (Oxford Historical Monographs) to see what I’m talking about.
“Their settlement is just up the road from me, about an hour away. Beautiful stone church. They obviously cherish it.”
A shame they didn’t cherish more of their own beliefs dating back to the 12th century. Instead they threw them away just like they did orthodoxy.
HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT UNITAS FRATRUM (1457-1722) The Bohemian Brethren are a link in a chain of sects beginning with Wyclif (1324-84) and coming down to the present day. The ideas of the Englishman found favour with Hus, and Bohemia proved a better soil for their growth than England. Both Wyclif and Hus were moved by a sincere desire to reform the Church of their times; both failed and, without intending it, became the fathers of new heretical bodies - the Lollards and the Hussites. The former were persecuted out of existence in England by Catholic rulers; the latter prospered in Bohemia, thanks to royal and national support. The burning of John Hus at the stake for his stubborn adherence to the condemed doctrines of Wyclif (at Constance, 6 July, 1415) was considered an insult to the faith of the Bohemian nation, which, since its first conversion to Christianity, had never swerved from the truth. The University of Prague came boldly forward to vindicate the man and his doctrines; the party which hitherto had worked at reforming the Church from within now rejected the Church's authority and became the Hussite sect...