Potter Profiles (1984-1995)
By Donna Potter Phillips
I collected information on ANY Potter family, ANY time and ANY place.
A series of 50+ surname booklets compiled over the last decade, each averaging 50 pages, fully indexed, now available online in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format.
All 50 booklets, 3 extra booklets on Potters in NY & TN, plus the complete text of the 1888 book by C. E. Potter, Genealogies of the Potter Families in America, is included.
This huge database of Potter family information includes lineages and queries shared with me by folks like you, plus all kinds of real information as found in birth, marriage, death, cemetery, census, church, military, land, probate, and other records. Many biographies are included, as are many previously unpublished manuscripts.
To give you some background, because I was interested in genealogy and was
born a Potter, I began collecting Potter family information in about 1980. It wasn't
long until I had collected all kinds of miscellaneous information on hundreds of Potter
families and most of them were not my line. Not wanting the material to go unused, I
decided to compile and publish the information in a series of booklets of POTTER
PROFILES, plus three special volumes (one of New York and two on Tennessee
Potters). This amounted to nearly 2500 pages of Potter records (genealogies, vital
records, church, census, military, land, probate records, etc.), all indexed and available
to any researcher.
But in a paper form, most Potter researchers could not afford the
copying and postage costs of what it took for me to share all that information.
I compiled
the booklets by using first the typewriter, then the computer and the "cut and paste"
method. I would xerox the library material, or folks would share material, and I could
cut and paste the information onto pages, compile and index them, and voila! a
booklet. So the material was NOT in electronic format.
Then comes 1996 when everything is going computer and so many genealogy
things are becoming available on CD-ROM disks. I wanted to transfer my database to
disk to make it affordable to Potter researchers, and DataSafe Systems helped me to do
this. All 2500 pages had to be manually scanned into the computer and then the file
transferred to CD-ROM disk. Now, in 2008, each of the booklets can be accessed
through the Live Roots genealogy search. (Search for "Potter Profiles")
I would appreciate hearing from any of you with kudos or criticism. Be patient
with using the booklets; take the information as good clues or starting points; and enjoy
the journey into POTTER PROFILES online for the first time!
Donna Potter Phillips
Spokane, Washington
