Church Records and More

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I completed two more old church records:

Membership records of Second Baptist Church of Sweden. These are from 1819 to 1840. Even though they mostly describe people coming and going there are some deaths included. Also remember that Baptist did not do infant baptism. You had to be an adult to get baptized. These records were transcribed by Myrte Rice Haynes of the local Daughters of the American Revolution.

Next is Members and baptisms of the Parma Greece Congregational Church, This was a strange church. It sat right on the town line of Greece and Parma just to the south of Ridge Road. At the time the church existed what is now Manitou Road had a bend to go around the church. Next to the church was a cemetery called West Greece Cemetery but actual in the Town of Parma. That cemetery is still there but the church is long gone.

This church did do infant baptisms and they are included. These records cover the time from 1819 to 1860. The records were copied by Mrs. Lula Purdy Smith and transcribe by Myrte Rice Haynes both from the local D.A.R. It was noted in this transcription that the original church book was located in the Rochester Historical Society in the 1930s. Not sure if they are still there, but I would think that they are.

Then I also scanned 4 booklets:

Program for Lake Avenue Baptist Church dated Dec. 22, 1912. This is their weekly program brochure. I have previously scanned a few other weekly programs from this church.

A 1935 program on Easter at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Rochester, NY.

Program for a dinner and induction of new members of the Royal Order of Jesters and dated Nov. 19, 1960. I love the graphics in this program like the jester on the right. I recognize a couple of the inductees that year as local merchants.

Program for Class Day, St. Andrew’s Seminary, 1917. This is tiny but it lists all 13 of the graduates of the class of 1917. I think this school lasted until the 1960s.

Kodak Lenses for Professional Photography (Sept. 1951). Description of Kodak lenses along with a price list from 1951. There is also a picture of musician Victor Borge that says it was taken with a Kodak Ektar lens. The prices of the lenses seem high especially when you remember this was from 1951.

Hit Songs of 1976 – #19

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Welcome Back, Kotter was a popular TV show that was on ABC from Sept. 1975  to June 1979. The producers wanted a good theme song and they were able to get John Sebastian to write the theme which is just called “Welcome Back.” The TV series was originally just going to be Kotter but Sebastian couldn’t find anything meaningful to rhyme with “Kotter” so he wrote about going back to his old neighborhood. The producers changed the name of the series after they heard the song.

The song is a lot longer than you heard at the beginning of the TV series. It got up to #1 on the Billboard chart for the week of May 2 -8.  Then on the Cash Box chart it was at the top spot for two weeks (May 9 – 22).

John Sebastian had been part of The Lovin’ Spoonful from 1965 to 1968. That group had a string of hits. Sebastian was attending the 1969 Woodstock when they asked him to fill in while another group was setting up. He only did about 30 minutes of music there. Although a well respected musician and song writer his later works only met with moderate success.I did see him in the early 80s at R.I.T. He was really good and played without a back-up band.

The star of Welcome Back, Kotter was Gabe Kaplan who never had another successful TVseries. He went back to doing stand-up. He also became a successful poker player. He won some very large amounts of money in tournaments. He has also been a commentator on online poker tournaments. It wasn’t on his Wikipedia page but I know he did work as a DJ on a radio station for a while.

The break0out start of Welcome Back, Kotter was John Travolta playing Vinny Barbarino. In 1976 he would appear twice on American Bandstand. First singing “Let Her In” in July and September singing “Whenever I’m Away From You.” After the song he mentions to Dick Clark that in January 1977 he will be filming a movie about a dancer at a discotheque.  That would become Saturday Nigh Fever. By the last year of Kotter he only appeared in a few episodes as his career had taken off.

My Spring Porch Sale

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I am having another sale on my porch this Saturday. May 9th. It is from 9 to 5. There is a chance of rain but that won’t be a problem as the sale will be on an enclosed porch.

I have over 120 Local History Books (mostly Rochester and Monroe County). Then there are 40+ Local High School and College yearbooks.

If you mention either Monroe Co. GenWeb or  Rochester Genealogical Society I will give you 20% off the books and yearbooks.

Other things available at the sale:

  • Postcards (mostly Rochester and New York State).
  • View Master Reels.
  • Photos: CDVs, tintypes, cabinet cards, snapshots.
  • Newspapers from the 1800s.
  • WBBF radio collectables.
  • Lots of ephemera

I accept cash (preferred), PayPal and Venmo.

If you want a preview of what is for sale, I put a big long list including prices on Craigslist.

Things on the Shelf

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I’m getting ready for another one of my porch sales. I decided that I no longer need to keep my paper copies of the tombstone records that I made in the 1990s and early 200s. There are copies at the Rochester Public. Library, FamilySearch and on the Monroe County GenWeb. I haven’t pull then down in 10 to 15 years. So there will be a binder of tombstone records for sale by each Town

I thought I had scanned everything in the binders but as I looked through them I found things that have never been scanned. So I created 3 new web pages and a new large PDF files.

  • Lakeside Cemetery of Hamlin, NY. I have three very old tombstone lists for this cemetery. One is from a newspaper article in 1890. There are some inscriptions that look as if an old tombstone was later replaced with a smaller and less detailed inscription. Then in 1934 two groups of ladies from the Daughters of the American Revolution copied inscriptions in the cemetery. Each of those had some tombstone inscriptions that weren’t in the other list. I combined all three lists and then added references to which list or lists the inscription is in. This only has tombstone up to 1934 so for later burials you should refer to the Find a Grave list for the cemetery.
  • A list of tombstone inscriptions in Parma Union Cemetery from 1928 that was done by Mary T. Douglas of the Daughters of the American Revolution. I’ll bet there a few tombstones that weren’t on later records of this cemetery.
  • Deaths (1836 – 1881) from Freewill Baptist Church, East Penfield, NY. This list is so old that it is something that I typed on my old typewriter. That means it is from 1984 when I got a computer.  These are deaths extracted from the records of the church that were published in the Detroit Society for Genealogical Research Magazine, (volume 34, 1970).
  • Membership records of Rochester Baptist Church from 1818 to about 1854 (PDF file). As this is a Baptist church, baptism were only performed to adults. A person could be admitted by baptism or from a letter from another church. People discharged left on friendly terms, usually to go to another church. People could be expelled for dancing, drinking alcohol, playing cards. etc. Many were expelled for not coming to church in a long time.

I will have another post about my sale in a couple of days.