Our club library has three new books which were donated by a friend of Lynne Brooke. All have to do with Colonial America:

“Plantagenet Ancestry: a study in colonial and medieval families“ by Douglas Richardson is the most unusual. As the author explains in his Introduction:

Purpose and Scope: This book documents lines of descent for over 200 seventeenth-century North American colonists from the Plantagenet dynasty that ruled England from 1154 to 1485. … The book has been compiled for three basic audiences: (1) For those who desire a reliable reference work for events in the colonial and medieval time periods; (2) For those interested in their personal family history who seek information regarding their more remote ancestry; (3) To help readers better understand English history from the viewpoint of family dynamics.

The book is organized by family lines. In general the last person listed for a family is someone who emigrated to North America, and the first person his earliest known Plantagenet ancestor. 205 colonial immigrants are identified; their Plantagenet ancestry runs to over 900 pages. The book is shelved in No Circulation.

“Jamestowne Ancestors, 1607 – 1699“ by Virginia Lee Hutcheson Davis lists names of those who can be documented as having lived on [Jamestown] Island between 1607 and 1699. The list is supplemented with maps and a glossary. Published by Genealogical Publishing in 2006, this slender 108 page work may be found in the Virginia subsection of our US collection.

 “First Families of Chester County, Pennsylvania“  is a two-volume work by John Pitts Launey. Here again there’s an informative historical introduction and maps prior to the list that comprises the bulk of the two volumes. Shelved in US/Pennsylvania.