From the Probate Files: Not Our Benjamin Porter (Alas!)

Last August Christine posted about a death notice for a Benjamin Porter who died in 1829 that she had found through our membership in the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) and she wondered if he was her fifth (my fourth) great grandfather who disappears from records after the 1820 U.S. Census.

Casting about for today's post,* I came across his profile on our family tree and decided to see if I could find anything more on NEHGS's site and found the note below attached to the first page of the probate file for the Benjamin Porter of Middlesex County, Massachusetts.

[Middlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871.Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (From records supplied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives. Digitized mages provided by FamilySearch.org)

https://www.americanancestors.org/DB536/i/14465/17770:2/38361465]

To the Honerable P. P Fay Judge of probate
for the County of Middlesex
Not wishing to administer on the estate of
Benjamin Porter my late husband I recommend
Solomon Rugg (my son in law) to that trust
                                 Prudence Porter

As you see below, "our" Benjamin Porter's wife was Lydia Wilcox who married a second time in 1821 and survived until 1869.

So I'm off to correct our family tree.


*While looking for a respite from my search for Watts ancestors in the probate records of Morgan County, Georgia.

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