RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 18, 2016
KINSEARCHING
by
Marleta Childs
P. O. Box 6825
LUBBOCK, TX 79493-6825
[email protected]
Many Americans dream about finding a connection to a royal lineage, especially in the British Isles, in the hopes it will extend their pedigree back many generations into the very distant past. To help family researchers achieve this goal, several compiled genealogies tracing the ancestry of English kings and queens have been published since 1950. Over the years, new information has sometimes been discovered that show previous versions contained errors or overlooked additional lines of royal descent, since some people may have several. Therefore, the compiled works needed to be revised from time to time to reflect these changes and additions. Originally published in 1996, one of the latest such compilations is the reprint of PLANTAGENET ANCESTRY OF SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY COLONISTS by David Faris.
Subtitled THE DESCENT FROM THE LATER PLANTAGENET KINGS OF ENGLAND, HENRY III, EDWARD I, EDWARD II, AND EDWARD III, OF EMIGRANTS FROM ENGLAND AND WALES TO THE NORTH AMERICAN COLONIES BEFORE 1701, Faris’s volume updates the ancestry of 137 seventeenth-century American pioneers. All of the lines provide the consecutive generations of descent (often with biographical details) of each of the pioneers back to the Plantagenet ancestor. Since cousins often married cousins, sometimes both spouses may be Plantagenet descendants. Surnames of a few of the well-known early American families are ABNEY, BARHAM, BATT, BERNARD, BRENT, CALVERT, CLAYPOOLE, DADE, DEIGHTON, DIGGES, EDDOWES, GORSUCH, KEMP, LIGON, LITTLETON, LUDLOW, MAINWARING, MARBURY, NELSON, PELHAM, RANDOLPH, SALTONSTALL, SKIPWITH, WASHINGTON, and WINGFIELD.
Experienced in the field, Faris worked with the compilers of earlier publications on the subject. For more than fifty years, ANCESTRAL ROOTS OF CERTAIN COLONISTS WHO CAME TO AMERICA BEFORE 1700 served as the standard work for genealogists tracing royal pedigrees for more than fifty years. Compiled by Frederick Lewis Weis and Walter Lee Sheppard, Jr., the volume had eight editions before Sheppard passed away. With Sheppard’s death, Faris carries on research begun with ANCESTRAL ROOTS, and its companion, THE MAGNA CHARTA SURETIES, 1215, in his book.
As a result, family researchers will want to check out the new and updated material in Faris’s volume for any changes in or additions to their line of descent. Since a few of the colonists in this book do not appear in the earlier compiled genealogies, such as ANCESTRAL ROOTS, a number of researchers may finally discover the royal tie they have been seeking in PLANTAGENET ANCESTRY OF SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY COLONISTS.
The 324-page volume has soft covers, an informative introduction, a page of acknowledgments, a list of the colonists under study, a six and one-half page bibliography, and an index. Full names of individuals of Plantagenet ancestry appear in the index, but only the surnames of other relatives are included. To the book's price of $35.00, buyers should add the cost for postage and handling charges. For U. S. postal mail, the cost is $5.50 for one book and $2.50 for each additional copy; for UPS, the cost is $7.50 for one copy and $2.50 for each additional book. The volume (item order #1758) may be purchased by check, MasterCard, or Visa from Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 3600 Clipper Mill Rd., Suite 260, Baltimore, Maryland 21211 (for phone orders, call toll free 1-800-296-6687; fax 1-410-752-8492; website www.genealogical.com).