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The Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants to the American Colonies or the United States. Gary Boyd Roberts. Hardbound, 2004, New, Index, 912 pp.
Publisher’s Description: Most Americans with sizable New England Yankee, mid-Atlantic Quaker, or Southern "planter" ancestry are descended from medieval kings--kings of England, Scotland, and France especially. For example, President Bush and Democratic Party aspirant John Kerry are both descended from royalty AND Bush and Kerry are respectively 10th cousins once and twice removed and 11th cousins once removed. This book tells you how. Outlined on 571 pages of charts are the best royal descents--i.e. from the most recent king--of 600 (actually 650) immigrants to the American colonies or the United States who were themselves notable or left descendants who were notable in American history. This volume is a massive expansion on previous books on the topic, even the author's own 1993 volume, The Royal Descents of 500 Immigrants. To the 570 subjects of this last volume, this new work adds 85 new immigrants, changes or overhauls the lines of 90 more, and deletes another 15.
The Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants is also a comprehensive survey, undertaken over a period of more than 35 years, of virtually all printed sources that lead to these royal lines. A survey of this size has never before been attempted. The result is a book that quantitatively and qualitatively redefines this area of genealogical research and outlines--definitively to date--American genealogical links to medieval kings and their "dark age" and "ancient world" forebears. It summarizes all pertinent research published through 2003, and is far and away the most comprehensive treatment of the subject in print. It does not supersede such works as Weis's Ancestral Roots and Magna Charta Sureties, The Plantagenet Ancestry of Seventeenth-Century Colonists, The Complete Peerage, or the Europaische Stammtafeln Series; rather it builds on and outlines the "best" royal descents from these and similar works, providing a ready means of access to royal descent literature.
Of the 650 colonists treated in this book, 387 came to the American colonies and left descendants, in some cases now numbering over a million, but almost always many thousands. Among the progeny of each of the 387 is at least one figure in the Dictionary of American Biography, the authoritative work covering the 18,000 most important people in American history who died before 1971. The remaining 263 immigrants (colonial governors other officials, "Great Awakening" or Revolutionary figures who often returned to Europe, and some 19th and early 20th-century notables) collectively suggest much about distant kinships of living Americans and the total contribution to American life of persons of royal, noble, and gentle ancestry.
Ancestors of the Nation
The 387 colonial immigrants whose "best" lines are charted in this work include all but a handful of colonists for whom royal descent is now considered proved. Among the 387, the following 180 left ten or more notable descendants each and are ancestors collectively of probably over 100 million living Americans. Arranged by colony, they are as follows:
Massachusetts: Robert Abell; Samuel and Judith (Everard) Appleton; Christopher and Anne (Bainton) Batt; Griffith and Margaret (Fleming) Bowen; Thomas Bradbury; Edward Bromfield; Mrs. Thomasine Ward Thompson Buffum; Rev. Peter, Jane (Allen), and Grace (Chetwode) Bulkeley; Mrs. Mary Lawrence Burnham; Edward and Ellen (Newton) Carleton; Rev. Charles Chauncey; Mrs. Elizabeth Haynes Cook; George Curwen; Gov. Thomas and Katherine (Deighton Hackburne, later Allyn) Dudley; Mrs. Olive Welby Farwell; Mrs. Jane Lawrence Giddings; William Goddard; Mrs. Elizabeth Bulkeley Whittingham Haugh Edmond Hawes; Mrs. Sarah Woodward Henchman; Mrs. Catherine Hamby Hutchinson; Percival Lowell; Simon Lynde; Mrs. Mary Gye Maverick; Mrs. Martha Bulkeley Mellowes; James Murray (husband of Mrs. Barbara Bennet Murray); Mrs. Jane Deighton Lugg Negus; John Nelson of Boston; Philip Nelson of Rowley; Thomas Nelson (Jr.) of Rowley; Increase Nowell; Rev. John and Frances (Woodward) Oxenbridge; Dr. Richard Palgrave; Mrs. Anne Humphrey Palmes (Myles); Herbert and Jemima (Waldegrave) Pelham; William Poole; Mrs. Amy Wyllys Pynchon; Edward Raynsford; Richard and Muriel (Gurdon) Saltonstall; Rev. William Sargent; Mrs. Mary Launce Sherman; Gov. William Shirley; Rev. William Skepper/Skipper; Constant and Thomas Southworth; Mrs. Anne Derehaugh Stratton; Peter Talbot; James Taylor; Mrs. Elizabeth Stratton Thorndike; Mrs. Jane Haviland Torrey; Mrs. Elizabeth St. John Whiting; Mrs. Frances Deighton Williams; Mrs. Elizabeth Mansfield Wilson; Mrs. Margaret Tyndal Winthrop; Peter Worden
Maine (part of Massachusetts until 1820): Joseph Bolles; Mrs. Joan Price Cleeve
Connecticut: Mrs. Margaret Wyatt Allyn; Mrs. Elizabeth Alsop Baldwin (Fowler); Thomas Bressie; Obadiah Bruen; Rev. John Davenport; Mrs. Anne Lloyd Yale Eaton; Mrs. Agnes Harris Spencer Edwards; Mrs. Mabel Harlakenden Haynes (Eaton); Gov. William Leete; Deputy Gov. [of Mass.] Roger Ludlow; Oliver Mainwaring; Mrs. Alice Freeman Thompson Parke; Thomas Trowbridge; Thomas Yale
Rhode Island: Acting Gov. Jeremiah Clarke; Gov. John Cranston; Mrs. Anne Marbury Hutchinson; Mrs. Katherine Marbury Scott; John Throckmorton
New Hampshire: Mrs. Rose Stoughton Otts; William Wentworth
New York: Matthew Clarkson; Alexander Hamilton; John Lawrence; Thomas Lawrence; William Lawrence; Robert Livingston the elder; Robert Livingston the younger; Gabriel Ludlow; Walter Rutherford; Robert Sinclair; Mrs. Mary Underhill Naylor Stites
New Jersey: Edward FitzRandolph; Mrs. Euphan Scott Johnstone; William and Isabel (Burnett) Montgomery
Pennsylvania: Thomas and Margaret (Davis) Bye; John Cadwalader; James Claypoole; Mrs. Arabella Smith Dallas (who immigrated in 1783); Mrs. Mary Fox Ellicott; Robert Jones; Joseph Kirkbride; Gov. Thomas and Mary (Jones) Lloyd; James Logan; Robert and Rebecca (Owen) Owen; Hugh and Jane (Owen) Roberts; John and Gainor (Roberts) Roberts; Mrs. Sidney Rees Roberts
Delaware: Rev. George Ross
Maryland: Hon. Anne Arundell Calvert, Baroness Baltimore; Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore; Lady Charlotte Lee Calvert, Baroness Baltimore; Jane Lowe Sewall Calvert, Baroness Baltimore; William Bladen; Thomas Boteler (Butler); Thomas Gerard; Mrs. Mary Mainwaring Gill; Mrs. Anne Lovelace Gorsuch; Alexander Magruder; James Neale; Secretary Henry Sewall; Richard Tilghman
Virginia: Col. Walter Aston; Lancelot Bathurst; Henry and Thomas Batte; Richard and Anna (Cordray) Bernard; Col. William Bernard; Christopher Branch; George Carrington; Mrs. Sarah Ludlow Carter; Lady Agatha Eltonhead Kellaway Wormeley Chichele; Mrs. Elizabeth Boteler Claiborne; Mrs. Martha Eltonhead Conway; Henry and Alice (Eltonhead Burnham, later Creek) Corbin; Gov. Edward Digges; Rev. Edward Foliot; Col. Gerard Fowke; John Henry; Warham Horsmanden; William Ironmonger; Henry Isham; Acting Gov. Edward Jennings; Col. Thomas Ligon/Lygon; Robert Peyton; William Randolph; Col. George Reade; Anthony Savage; Sir Grey Skipwith, 3rd Bt.; Lawrence Smith; Gov. Alexander Spotswood; William Strother; Lawrence Towneley; St. George Tucker; Col. John Waller; Mrs. Mary Towneley Warner; John Washington of Surry Co.; John Washington of Westmoreland Co.; Gov. Hon. John West
North Carolina: Mrs. Barbara Bennet Murray (wife of James Murray of Mass.)
South Carolina: John Alston; Stephen Bull; Gov. Robert Gibbes
Georgia: Col. Kenneth Baillie; John Irvine
About the Author
Gary Boyd Roberts, nationally renowned Senior Research Scholar at the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) in Boston, Massachusetts, is well known for American Ancestors and Cousins of The Princess of Wales (1984), Ancestors of American Presidents (1989, 1995), Notable Kin, 2 vols. (1998-99), his Internet column on the NEHGS website, his introduction to C.A. Torrey's New England Marriages Prior to 1700, and his selections and introductions for fifteen volumes of journal articles. His 1993 compendium, The Royal Descents of 500 Immigrants, was an "instant classic," and became the springboard for much further research. He contributed to the last two or more editions of Ancestral Roots, Magna Charta Sureties, and The Plantagenet Ancestry of Seventeenth-Century Colonists. In addition, he has helped NEHGS patrons trace their royal descents and "notable kin" since 1974 and has lectured widely on various related topics.
Mr. Roberts' lifetime work, a twenty-three volume manuscript called "The Mowbray Connection," copies of which can be found at NEHGS, the New York Public Library, and the Society of Genealogists in London, is subtitled "An Analysis of the Genealogical Evolution of British, American, and Continental Nobilities, Gentries, and Upper Classes Since the End of the Middle Ages."
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