Susanna Albro and John Anthony

XIII. Susanna Albro and John Anthony
(When the names change, but are the same.)

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Several of these Controversies articles involve either the wives of Albros or the wives' families. It still seems to meet the criteria for this section, since the wives become Albros. The name is all. But in reality the name is not all. We are who we are because of the genetic material passed on to us by our ancestors regardless of their names. Those names gave them their position in society in many cases, or so it seemed, yet that is an over-simplification. There are rich Smiths and poor Smiths, and so also for Jones.

Yet there is a different feeling, and there has long been a different attitude, toward women as they marry and change their names. It almost feels like they moved out of one family and became a new person. The present article is submitted, therefore, both because it illustrates one of the most confusing collections of guesses presented as facts we have ever encountered, and to remind us that our daughters do not stop being our daughters just because they change their names when they marry.

Susanna Albro was the fifth child and third daughter of John and Dorothy Albro, and thereby represents the first generation of Albros born in America. She was clearly a favorite of John's, apparently taking care of him in his old age. John's will1 singles Susanna out for special attention, and it appears from the will that two of her children, John Anthony and Albro Anthony, were special favorites among John's grandchildren. Susanna married John Anthony, (son of John, father of John, just like an Albro!), who had previously been married to Frances Wodell, daughter of William and Mary Wodell. John and Frances had nine reported children, while John and Susanna had three (Albro, Sarah and John.)

Suppose we look at Susanna Albro first. A few examples of the diverse claims about her date of birth include:

	Abt. 1642 in Massachusetts:	LDS PRF CD#1 by the Turley family.
	Abt. 1645 no location:	LDS PRF CD#22 Pin #518634.
	1652 Of Portsmouth, RI	LDS Ancestral File for AFN:1XQ6-3K3.
	1652 N. Kingstown, Wash., RI	LDS IGI film 183571 p.784 ref.27359.
	1653 Portsmouth, RI	John Victor Duncanson³³ 1985.
	Abt. 1660 no location:	Ancestors of Martha S. Finfrock¹¹³.
	Abt. 1665 <Portsmouth, RI>	LDS PRF CD#17 Pin #813400 and Orr Gedcom¹⁴³.
	Abt. 1672 <Portsmouth, RI>	LDS IGI film 6142785.

We like 1652, Portsmouth, Newport, RI, for its compatibility with the birth dates of her siblings. Why do so many other numbers exist? They seem to be estimates with their bases unspecified. Please keep in mind that the references given in this article are representative, not inclusive, and many additional references could be given.

The date of Susanna's death is not nearly as widely dispersed as the guesses at her date of birth. We can find:

	Sep 3, 1687	LDS IGI file on line, no source given. A glitch.
	Abt. 1715	Joan's Genealogy Site¹⁴⁴ fam05339.
	1715	LDS PRF CD#17 Pin #813400.
	Aft. 1715	LDS PRF CD#1 submitted by Turley Family.
	"1715 +"	Austin's Genealogical Dictionary of R.I².
	"Oct 20, 1715 +"	Martha Benns' Notes¹².
	Oct 20, 1717	Ancestors of Martha S. Finfrock¹¹³.

Based on overall track record for accuracy, we would lean toward Martha Benns' Notes; but as usual, nothing can be considered "proven". The reader can check these out and pick one at will. Martha Benns' date is based on the assumption that Susanna died some time after John Anthony (cf.)

Susanna's marriage to John Anthony is generally accepted as having taken place in Portsmouth, Newport, RI. Dates are given as:

	Abt. 1667	LDS IGI film 1985297; film 1985417 and film 6142788.
	1693	LDS IGI batch M501241 s. 0908270 po. 1002595; Arnold's "Vital Records of R.I.⁷⁰"; LDS PRF CD#14 Pin #530568; LDS Ancestral File AFN: 8NT6-BR.
	Jan 3, 1694	LDS PRF CD#17 Pin #813400; PRF CD#5 Pin #511350; IGI batch 8867604 source 1553221 sheet 11; IGI batch F876307 source 1396367 sheet 50; PRF CD#22 Pin #518634 (Earl Peckham); IGI film 170680 p.869 ref.22635; Martha Benns' Notes¹².

Again, we prefer the last date above, supported by Martha Benns' Notes. Beware the outliers! What one can not do, here as always, is go with the first set of dates one stumbles across. One quick side comment on "approximate dates" - you will often see the symbol "<" used in front of dates, e.g. <1715. In mathematics, this symbol means "less than", or in this application, "before." But it is commonly used in some of the genealogy software to mean "about", and we occasionally see it misinterpreted as "after" (which would be ">1715".) This may be one reason approximate dates so commonly become conflicting.

Moving right along, let's look at John Anthony, husband of Susanna. His date of birth is reported as 1642 fairly consistently, but the birthplace is given as either Portsmouth, Newport, RI (e.g. John Osborne Austin's "Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island²"), or Kingstown, Washington, RI (e.g. Martha Benns' "Notes on the Albro Family12".) Portsmouth is also the designation in "Descendants of John Anthony" by Susan White Pieroth144, Sep 5, 1997. You're on your own here. His date of death is given by Austin as Oct 20, 1715, and generally accepted as such. The marriage date has already been discussed.

Next we enter the twilight zone of this article, John Anthony's parents. While it is generally accepted that the parents were John Anthony and Susanna Potter, we are forced to ask which John Anthony and which Susanna Potter. There were usually several of each in the relevant Rhode Island towns of interest, and that has resulted in considerable confusion. The "correct" Susanna Potter has three conflicting sets of claimed parents - George and Martha Potter, John and Martha Potter, or Robert and Isabel Potter. To confuse things a little further, George and John Potter (brothers) had as parents Robert and Isabel Potter, but a different Robert and Isabel from the couple claimed to have been parents of the Susanna Potter we are trying to follow. Finally, there is yet a third Robert Potter, half-brother of Susanna, whose wife's name was Isabel (Isabel Tripp) and who has no relevance to the Susanna controversy except to provide another Robert/Isabel couple for confusion.

The John & Martha parentage of Susanna Potter is claimed in an LDS Ancestral File in which the AFN identifiers are 8WKS-FF, GN3C-SS AND 2S0-6G respectively. in this file John was born in 1590, Martha in 1595, and John was the son of Robert Potter (AFN: 8WKS-HR) and Isobel <Potter> (AFN: 8WKS-JX.) That the parents were George and Martha Potter is claimed in another LDS Ancestral File in which George and Martha are AFN: GN3C-RM and GN3C-SS respectively. The Ancestral file for Susanna Potter = AFN: 2S0W-6G, recid=2268816 restates both claims, but has the same Martha as wife of both George and John. The Robert/Isabel claim appears in the WorldConnect Project ROSE et al. (RootsWeb), apparently derived by interpretation of the comments in Austin's "Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island2", p.5.

Actually, it can be made to make sense. Combining the published claims, Martha (unknown) seems to have married first George Potter in or about 1607. They proceeded to have nine children, ending when George died. Martha then married George's brother John in 1618, having three more children. Susanna was Martha's 10th child, but the first by her second husband John. The Robert Potter who married Isabel Tripp was Martha's first child by her first husband George. Whereas Susanna was born abt. 1619, in 1620 a Susannah Potter was born to Robert Potter and his wife Isabel Anthony (Austin's "Genealogical Dictionary"), but she married Henry Knowles abt. 1640. That accounts for two of the three Isabel/Isobels married to a Robert Potter; we do not know the maiden name of the one who was George & John's mother. All in all, we have three Robert Potters, three Isabel/Isobel Potters, two Susanna/Susannah Potters, a George and a John Potter, and a Martha Potter Potter. No wonder there is confusion. Before you conclude that the mystery has been solved, please keep in mind that we do not know when George Potter died. Based on christening dates, the second John and Nathaniel Potter were all born after Susanna, yet have also been assigned to George and Martha Potter by many researchers. So this George & John hypothesis is just that, a working hypothesis.

The claimed dates of birth for Susanna Potter include:

	Bet. 1590-1600	IGI films 2034547, 1985380 and 1903576.
	Abt. 1609 Portsmouth, RI	IGI film 1985709.
	Abt. 1609 S. Kingstown, RI	IGI film 184221 p.334 ref.7456.
	Abt. 1610	IGI film 1985619.
	Abt. 1611	IGI batch 6020157 source 1621508 sheet 28.
	1618 England	LDS Ancestral File familyid=4637673.
	1618 S. Kingstown, RI	LDS PRF CD#22 Pin #272481.
	1621 London, England	LDS PRF CD#10 Pin #218940.

If she was really the Susanna Potter christened April 18, 1619 at Newport-Pagnell, Bucks Co., England, the unlikely or impossible estimates for date of birth become fairly obvious. Also, she could not have been born in Rhode Island at any of these dates, since the area was only settled by whites in 1636.

We should also take a look at the reported date for Susanna Potter's marriage to John Anthony (father of the John Anthony who married Susanna Albro.) The date is given as:

	1634	LDS IGI batch F876307 source 1396367 sheet 48.
	1640	LDS IGI film 962055.
	1649	LDS IGI batch 7834230 source 1126451 sheet 48.
	1660	LDS IGI batch F610890 source 1621490 sheet 78.
	1675	LDS IGI file online, no source given.

Merely a 41 year range of guess work. There is clearly no authoritative document available, so you can pick any guess you like.

I should also point out that several LDS records, mainly Pedigree Resource Files, claim that Susanna married Joseph Anthony in 1637 and John Anthony in 1660 (CD#22 Pin #272481, CD#3 AFN: 2S0W-6G, CD#13 Pin #747217.) A case can be made that "John" and "Joseph" were one and the same Potter. This John Anthony was the progenitor of the Anthonys in America, having arrived as an indentured servant on the ship Hercules, John Kiddey, Master, April 16, 1634 (Genealogies of R.I. Families, Vol.I¹⁴⁵, Genealogy of the Anthonys of New England, communicated by John Gould Anthony, Cambridgeport, MA, and Austin's Genealogical Dictionary of R.I2. p.4.)

In many of the previous Controversy articles, the main causes of discrepancies in reported dates, places, and names were what appear to be errors in the earliest compilations, the existence of very early records that contradict one another, and guesses apparently made simply to make it possible to fill in blanks. It seems a major cause of discrepancies in the present case has been mixing data from people who had the same names, lived at the same time, and lived near each other. To some extent this may have been done by 19th century compilers as well, so confusion in the present is quite justified.

References:

¹"One Hundred and Sixty Allied Families" by John Osborne Austin, Providence, RI (1893)

²"Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island", by John Osborne Austin, 1887, p.4, 234.

¹²"Notes on the Albro Family of Rhode Island" by Martha A. Benns, made at the Rhode Island Historical Society, 1942, filmed at Providence, RI 17 July 1950 by the Genealogical Society of Salt Lake City Utah, roll # 22322.

³⁰"Genealogies of Rhode Island Families", Vol.I, Adams-Slack Genealogical Publ.Co., Inc., Baltimore, MD. 1983, and/or Rhode Island Historical Society, filmed at Providence, RI by the Genealogical Society of Salt Lake City, UT, 17 July 1950, roll #23322.

³³Duncanson, John Victor, "Newport Nova Scotia - A Rhode Island Township", Mika Publishing Co., Belleville, Ontario, 1985, pp.81-86.

⁷⁰"Vital Records of Rhode Island, 1636-1850: a family register for the people" by James Newell Arnold (1844-1927).

¹¹³"Ancestors of Martha S. Finfrock"; www.familytreemaker.com/users/f/i/n/Martha-S-Finfrock/index.html, May 1998.

¹⁴³RootsWeb World Connect Project: Orr gedcom id=1351

¹⁴⁴ http://www.softcom.net/users/verdoorn/genealogy/surnames.htm

¹⁴⁵ http://www.rootsweb.com/~scwhite/sherman/anthony.htm

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