Person:John Potter (33)

Sources of information for this family include John O. Austin's Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island and the Potter Family Genealogies, Part 2: George Potter of Portsmouth, R.I., and His Descendants. From these sources, it was obvious that there were numerous immigrants to colonial Rhode Island named Potter and that there were probably close ties of kinship between some of these individuals. This theory appeared to be confirmed by some correspondence with Vernon and Nola (Steed) Valantine of La Crescenta, California. Their research and analysis, which appears in the Ancestral File of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, seemed to solve the puzzle of the Potter immigrants of Rhode Island, linking them as children of George and Martha (-----) Potter of London.

However, in 1999, another researcher, Paul Gifford, informed me that he had reviewed the parish registers and discovered that most of the birth records thought to pertain to the immigrant siblings had corresponding death records! The English origins of George-1 Potter and his kinship, if any, to the other Potter immigrants of Rhode Island remain unknown.