Many persons living today have Quaker ancestors—even though these descendants are not themselves members of the Society of Friends. Quaker records are voluminous, but, owing to the structure and concerns of the Society, they require prior explanation. And this is precisely what Our Quaker Ancestors: Finding Them in Quaker Records, by the late Ellen and[…]Read more
Category: Genealogy Pointers
New Publication Connects Americans to their Irish and Scottish Forebears
The new consolidated edition of Scots-Irish Links [1575-1875], by David Dobson identifies over 15,000 Scots-Irish inhabitants of the Ulster Plantation, and the indexes to those two volumes name an astounding 33,000 people connected to those inhabitants. Of course, even those numbers cannot compare with the wave of Scots who transplanted to Ireland. In the 17th-century[…]Read more
Scots-Irish Links Consolidation Edition
David Dobson’s Scots-Irish Links Consolidated Edition incorporates sixteen separate titles published between 1994 and 2021 and covers persons of known Scots-Irish heritage between 1575 and 1900. Scots-Irish Links Consolidation Edition improves upon the original, small books by adding a full-name index to the entire opus, thereby identifying every person named in the alphabetically arranged abstracts.[…]Read more
Determining Native American Ancestry with DNA Relies on Population Genetics
In the following segment from DNA for Native American Genealogy, author Roberta Estes explains the percentage of Native DNA one is likely to possess and how the science of population genetics comes into play in establishing that relationship. “How Much of Them is in Me?” As discussed earlier, while everyone inherits exactly half of each[…]Read more
Gold Standard for Maryland Research: Pioneers of Old Monocacy
The American Society of Genealogists bestows its annual Jacobus Award upon the finest work of genealogical scholarship of the preceding year. It would be hard to find a more deserving winner of its coveted Jacobus Award than the 1988 selection, Pioneers of Old Monocacy: The Early Settlement of Frederick County, Maryland 1721-1743, by Grace L.[…]Read more
Notable Ancestors & Descendants of 17th-Century Colonists Anne (Marbury) Hutchinson & Katherine (Marbury) Scott
Anne (Marbury) Hutchinson, the 17th-century Puritan heretic and co-founder of Rhode Island, died in an Indian attack with several of her children only nine years after she arrived in America. Her surviving four children and the children of her sister Katherine (Marbury) Scott produced many descendants with royal or noble ancestors. For example, their American[…]Read more
Pre-eminent Source for Quaker Ancestors
Virtually no other class of records, religious or secular, has been kept as meticulously as the monthly meeting records of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). The oldest such records span three centuries of American history and testify to a general movement of population that extended from New England and the Middle Atlantic states southward[…]Read more
“The Germans and Germany,” by Angus Baxter (Part Two)
[The second part of this article is condensed from the chapter by the same name in the 5th Edition of Mr. Baxter’s classic how-to book, In Search of Your German Roots. Readers should note that, in the interest of brevity, a number of tables in the book which describe the migration and distribution of the[…]Read more
Learn About Land Records in The Researcher’s Guide to American Genealogy. Fourth Edition
In the Fourth Edition of The Researcher’s Guide to American Genealogy, author Val D. Greenwood devotes three full chapters (80 pages) to the subject of land records. One chapter covers national (colonial and U.S.) land, a second one covers local land, and the third explains the formats of land record abstracts. Land records, of course,[…]Read more
The Scots-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania
Published originally in 1944, The Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania, by historian Wayland F. Dunaway, is still regarded as one of the most important textbooks for Scots-Irish ancestry. For one thing, the title is a bit misleading as the author not only covers the significant arrival of Ulster Scots in the Province of Pennsylvania but also[…]Read more
Angus Baxter & Ernest Thode: One-Two-Three Punch for German Researchers
In recent issues of “Genealogy Pointers,” we have highlighted Angus Baxter’s In Search of Your German Roots. Fifth Edition. Besides Baxter’s description of German history’s impact on its genealogy sources, equally informative chapters in the Fifth Edition cover German genealogy websites, German-Jewish records, the German records of the LDS Church, the archives of Germanic genealogy,[…]Read more
“The Germans and Germany,” by Angus Baxter (Part One)
[This article is condensed from the chapter by the same name in the 5th Edition of Mr. Baxter’s classic how-to book, In Search of Your German Roots. Readers should note that, in the interest of brevity, a number of tables in the book which describe the migration and distribution of the German population and the[…]Read more