The following information was assembled from numerous sources and cannot be used directly as proof of Qualifying Service or Lineage.
It is considered a research aid and is intended to assist in locating sources that can be used as proof.
Genealogy Notations
Future Applicants Must Prove Correct Lineage
The Ebenezer Sumner who married Ruth Pratt is not the son of Hezekiah Sumner. Hezekiah’s son Ebenezer had joined his parents, brothers, and only established sister, Mary (Sumner) Smith, in moving from Loudon, Massachusetts, to Adams, New York. Ebenezer died there in April 1829, shortly before Hezekiah is last of record, leaving land to be divided amongst four surviving children and heirs. Deeds relevant to Ebenezer in Jefferson County, where Adams is located, include R:107-108 (from Hezekiah, 1822); A3:20-21 (exchange with Elisha Morgan, 1827); Y3:285; and Z2:217-218 (the latter both conveyances by Ebenezer’s heirs).
The Ebenezer Sumner who married Ruth Pratt had children whose births are also recorded in Shutesbury. He is believed to be the Ebenezer L. Sumner of Galen, New York (then Seneca County, later Wayne County) who joined in a sale of land in Shutesbury in 1815 (Franklin Co., Mass., Deeds, 36:234). When he entered his federal patent for land in Oakland County in 1837, he did so from Wayne County, New York; and his 1851 deed (Oakland Co., Mich., Deeds, 46:260-261), as well as the 1860 census, shows that he was still married to Ruth. In short, the 1806 marriage has been correctly identified with the 1860 census, but not with the 1786 birth record of the patriot Hezekiah’s son.
Patriot biographies must be the original work of the author, and work submitted must not belong to another person or group, in observance with copyright law. Patriot biographies are to be written in complete sentences, follow the established rules of grammar, syntax and punctuation, be free of typographical errors, and follow a narrative format. The narrative should unfold in a logical manner (e.g. the narrative does not jump from time period to time period) or have repeated digressions, or tell the history of the patriot's line from the patriot ancestor to the author. The thinking here is that this is a patriot biography, not a lineage report or a kinship determination project or other report published in a genealogy journal. The biography should discuss the qualifying service (military, patriotic, civil) of the patriot ancestor, where the service was rendered, whether this was a specific state or Continental service, as well as significant events (as determined by the author) of the patriot's life. This is the entire purpose of a patriot's biography.
Additional guidelines around the Biography writeup can be found here:
Send your submission1, in a Microsoft Word compatible format, to patriotbios@sar.org for inclusion in this space 1Upon submission of a patriot biography, the patriot biography becomes the property of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, and may be edited to conform to the patriot biography submission standards.