This book, as originally published, does not contain an index to the names in the book. I have been told that someone has done a re-print of the book which does contain an index, although the paging of the re-print is different from the original. After responding to many inquiries to lookup names in this book (the hard way), I decided to create my own index.
As I started this project, I decided to index exactly what was in the book. Since many names are repeated in different generations, this index uses names (last and given) and years of birth & death to identify each person. I used the dates and names as they are printed in the book, even if research has developed different information since 1948. For example, the two different years of death for Harvey Porterfield mentioned elsewhere on this web site results in two entries for him in this index.
Here are a few ground rules that I used in compiling this index.
- If the last name is known, but not the first name, I entered “(male)” or “(female)” for the first name.
- In the two cases where the last name is not known, I entered “(unknown).”
- The index begins with page 87 of the book which is Chapter 5, “Cumberland County Porterfields.” I may add the front part of the book, which deals mostly with the Porterfields before America, at a later time.