Chapter Five of The Researcher’s Guide to American Genealogy. 4th Edition, by Val Greenwood, is entitled “Libraries and the National Archives (NARA).” In a way the chapter title is understated because many libraries have digitized their family history holdings (e.g., personal papers, published family histories, military records, etc.) and made them available for free on[…]Read more
The system of primogeniture, the medieval practice of passing down a title and its holdings to one’s eldest son (or daughter), accounts for the fact that many Americans have royal or noble ancestors. For example, the millions of descendants of the 970 immigrant ancestors discussed in the 2018 edition of Gary Boyd Roberts’ book, The[…]Read more
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
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
Like their present-day counterparts, old newspapers are a great source of marriage and obituary notices. In fact, early newspapers are sometimes the ONLY source of genealogical information for a specific locality at a particular point in time. Since 18th- and 19th-century newspapers have not come down to us with their own indexes, it’s daunting to[…]Read more
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
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
Several weeks ago, we announced the publication of the two-volume, fully-indexed, consolidated edition of David Dobson’s Scots-Irish Links. This 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[…]Read more
Engaging in genealogical research requires a commitment of time, energy, and resources. Along the way, we may invest in travel, subscribe to web sites, buy books, establish relationships and more, as we devote ourselves to unraveling the mysteries and connections of our families. One aspect of genealogy that many hobbyists do not make a serious[…]Read more
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
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
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
