Thursday, June 18, 2015

The Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy Saga

I have been promoting the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy since beginning my blog. One of my charts was a thumbnail of my success, or lack thereof, year to year. The next few posts will chronicle my Problem Solving adventures at the SLIG beginning in 2001 and running through 2014. [As mentioned Problem Solving was placed on hiatus this year, but will be back in 2016.]

2001: Identify the Parents of Zachariah Rhodes: Suspected to be Holden Rhodes and Susaanah Wall of Rhode Island [consultants: Jimmy Parker, David Putnam] The title stated my primary goal. Secondary motives were to flesh out Zachariah's story in Baltimore. Jimmy and David were great consultants to have at my first SLIG. There was little doubt that I had correctly identified the parents of Zachariah. From there the hopes were to find his date of death, the date of death for his wife Harriet Cunningham and exactly what happened to their only child Ann Bathia Rhodes, before she turned up with her widowed aunt and married into the Prall family in Harford Co., MD.

Not much was found on Zachariah and Harriet. The Life and Time of Samuel Gorton stated that Zachariah died at sea. That, at least, confirmed a family story. I located pits and pieces on Ralph Porter and Bathia Cunningham [Harriet's sister]. John Brown Jr.'s will named the Porters and Ann Bathia as heirs. [John was the son of another Cunningham girl.]

It was clear that Ann had been taken in by the Porters after her mother died. She and Bathia later moved to Harford Co.

Note: Since 2001, the Rhodes story has fleshed itself out. A trip to Baltimore nand an examination of city directories and other records narrowed Zachariah's death date to 1814-15 and Harriet's to 1818. A trip to Boston would turn up the name of Zachariah's ship, the date it left port and the destination.

Tomorrow I will relate three of my less successful SLIGs [2002-04]. Each had its successes, but overall, the goals were not met. Don't be discouraged! It got better in a hurry! :)-

No comments:

Post a Comment