Dear Ian --

If you get any positive responses to your question not posted to the list,
I would be interested in knowing of them. Are you familiar with the Making
of America site?

http://www.umdl.umich.edu/moa/index.html

A search under "Baptist" and "New York" brought up some interesting results
which added to my knowledge. One "hit" is titled _Fifty Years Among the
Baptists_ by David Benedict, published 1860.

http://moa.umdl.umich.edu/cgo-bin/moa/sgml/moa-idx?notisd-AJK2010

In any case, I am interested particularly in the records of churches in Jay
& Peru, Essex County, around 1812, and of the Belcoda Church in Wheatland
prior to 1816.

Good luck,

Elizabeth Richardson
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----------
> From: Ian McGiver <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: NYS Baptist Records
> Date: Friday, July 03, 1998 12:47 PM
>
> Is anyone familiar with Baptist Church records dating to the late
> eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries and how/where they might be
> kept?
>
> I am researching a Baptist congregation that was organized around 1805
> within
> Schoharie County. (I have checked all the usual local sources and, so
far,
> I have had no luck uncovering any records for this church.)
>
> I know that there is a Baptist archive in Rochester (the name slips at
> the moment and I dod not have my notes at hand). HOWEVER, my
understanding
> is that most of the Rochester records are from CALVINIST Baptist
> congregations. And
> I believe that the particular congregation I am interested in tended
> toward a FREEWILL faith. And, whereas these distinctions might not have
> been so distinct toward the end of the nineteenth century, they seem to
> have played an important part in community formation in the early
> nineteenth century in the particular locale I am looking at. For example,
> I
> am noticing that people in one part of this community attended Baptist
> services in a calvinist congregation that was several miles away. But
> another  Baptist congregation (the one I am interested in) existed within
> the community.
> It is because some members traveled so far to attend a Calvinist
> congregation that I suspect that the local Baptist congregation was
> Freewill.
>         But I am not sure about this and whether or not there were
genuine
> distinctions in ideology and faith. The self-segregation of the Baptists
> could simply have been a result of older clan ties that predated
> settlement in the community. (that is, the Baptists who travel so far
> rather than attend services locally may have simply wanted to associate
> with friends and kins from their older neighborhoods.)
>
> Thanks for your help
>
> Ian McGiver
> Ph.D. Candidate
> History
> University of Chicago