Check out our latest three releases: White Slave Children in Colonial America: Supplement to the TrilogyBy Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D. Richard Hayes Phillips is the author of a landmark trilogy of history books documenting the forced servitude of more than 5,000 white children in colonial Maryland and Virginia, beginning in about 1659. (Without Indentures: Index[…]Read more
Two Rules to Break in Genealogical Research, by Elizabeth Shown Mills
“The Name’s the Same” Rule: Identifying people is a significant challenge for historical writers—particularly people who played minor roles in an event or lived low-key lives. When we encounter records that bear the right name, in the right place and time, it is tempting to assume the record applies to our person of interest. The[…]Read more
From Across the Spanish Empire: Spanish Soldiers Who Helped Win the American Revolutionary War, 1776-1783. [Arizona, California, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Texas Military Rosters] – By Leroy Martinez
Leroy Martinez’ book, From Across the Spanish Empire: Spanish Soldiers Who Helped Win the American Revolutionary War, 1776-1783, provides the first comprehensive list of Spanish soldiers who served in North America during the U.S. War for Independence. Separate chapters list those who served in Arizona, California, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Texas. In most cases Mr.[…]Read more
New Scottish Guidebook Provides Lowdown on Records of Inheritance
Among its many features, Dr. David Dobson’s new book, Scottish Genealogy: Beyond the Basics explains the process of inheritance in Scotland and the terms and locations researchers must reckon with when hunting for them. Here’s a sample taken from the book: Scottish Wills and Testaments In Scotland inheritance is controlled by a testament, a term[…]Read more
Interview with Paul Heinegg, Author of the New 6th Edition of Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia & South Carolina from the Colonial Period to About 1820 (Part Two)
Part One of this interview appeared in previous issue of Genealogy Pointers. It explores how the author first became interested in African American genealogy and his methodology. Part Two focuses on the major findings of Mr. Heinegg’s new 6th edition and the sources consulted, many of which are now available online. Genealogy Pointers: You have[…]Read more
Colonial Tidewater Virginia Publications by Virginia L. H. Davis
The late Virginia Lee Hutcheson Davis was one of our leading authorities on the earliest inhabitants of Jamestown and the entire Tidewater region of Virginia. Her most famous book on this area of research was the diminutive volume, Jamestowne Ancestors, 1607-1699, a list of approximately 1,200 persons who are known to have landed or resided[…]Read more
Framework for 6th Edition of Free African Americans of NC, VA & SC
The new 6th Edition of Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia & South Carolina from the Colonial Period to About 1820, by Paul Heinegg, contains genealogies of 650 families, 38 more families than found in the 5th Edition. Moreover, Mr. Heinegg has traced most of the families as far as possible from what is[…]Read more
New and Updated “Genealogy at a Glance” Titles Garner Kudos
We were delighted to see that several prominent periodicals had good things to say about new and newish installments in our “Genealogy at a Glance” series of research aids. The following highlights of those reviews come from the March 2021 issue of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, the long running newspaper column Kinsearching, and the[…]Read more
You Can Write Your Family History, by Sharon DeBartolo Carmack
You know you should do it. The relatives are nagging you to do it. You’ve probably attended a class or workshop on how to do it. You may have even bought or read other books telling you that you should do it and how you should do it. Write the family history? Sure. Sounds like[…]Read more
Interview with Paul Heinegg, Author of the New 6th Edition of Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia & South Carolina from the Colonial Period to About 1820 (Part One)
Genealogy Pointers: When did you first get interested in African American genealogy? Why? Paul Heinegg: I was working in Saudi Arabia in 1985, living in a community in the middle of the desert (much like a military compound) with about 200 other U.S. families when a co-worker came back from vacation and told me how[…]Read more
The New Immigrant Lines in RD 900, by Gary Boyd Roberts
Readers familiar with Gary Boyd Roberts’ scholarship know that between 2004 and 2010, Mr. Roberts wrote smaller, earlier editions of his now magnum opus, The Royal Descents of 900 Immigrants to the American Colonies, Quebec, or the United States (2018). The earliest edition of the work covered the royal descents of 500 immigrants. Mr. Roberts[…]Read more
New, Expanded 6th Edition of Landmark Publication Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia & South Carolina, From the Colonial Period to About 1820
The Third Edition of Paul Heinegg’s Free African Americans of North Carolina and Virginia was awarded the American Society of Genealogists’ prestigious Donald Lines Jacobus Award for the best work of genealogical scholarship published between 1991 and 1994. The new Sixth Edition is Heinegg’s most ambitious effort yet to reconstruct the history of the free African-American communities of[…]Read more