“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
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
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
What do you and Prince Harry and HRH Prince William have in common? The exciting possibility is that you and they are cousins, as well as cousins to both of their royal parents. In the film The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), Mary Boleyn is depicted as having had a five-year relationship as mistress of Henry VIII, King of England–despite her marriage to William Carey, Gentleman[…]Read more
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
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
Dr. David Dobson has published over 150 books for Genealogical.com (trading as Genealogical Publishing Company and Clearfield Co.,). His books cover a wide range of Scottish and Irish source records, immigration, and a number of how-to books. His most recent book is the much-touted guidebook Scottish Genealogy: The Basics & Beyond. In preparation for the[…]Read more
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
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
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
Among the many excellent features of the 4th edition of The Researcher’s Guide to American Genealogy, by Val D. Greenwood, are two entirely new and up-to-date chapters on technology. Like the entire volume, the author has written these chapters so the average family researcher can understand them and apply them effectively in investigations. To illustrate[…]Read more
Whatever the research problem, once we have carefully analyzed everything we have accumulated and are confident that our starting-point data is sound, we can move forward with the development of a work plan for productive research. Research plans offer prioritized, detailed lists of relevant sources that should provide information to resolve the stated problem. We[…]Read more
