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Three
Mayflower & New England Resources
The
Complete Mayflower Descendant & Other Sources, 1600s-1800s
(CD 203)
Reviewed by Marthe Arends
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Once again Mayflower descendants, and descendants of those early
residents of Plymouth, have cause to celebrate: 46 volumes of
the illustrious Mayflower Descendant (publication of the
Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants) are now available
on Family Archive. Those of you familiar with Mayflower research
will recognize the name of editor of the first 34 volumes —
George Ernest Bowman, noted Mayflower researcher. Bowman, secretary
for the Society 1896-1941, transcribed thousands of records that
would later be published in the Mayflower Descendant. Here
you'll find information for approximately 200,000 individuals;
the bulk of the information found falls in the period of 1600
to 1800, although I did see some references outside that time
period. Volumes 1-46 were published from to 1899 to 1996.
The CD contains more than just the Mayflower Descendant;
also included are a list of the Mayflower passengers (not just
those who signed the Mayflower Compact), Middleborough, MA
Vital Records (Volumes 1 and 2), and Pilgrim Notes and
Queries, Volumes 1-5 (edited by George Bowman). As with other
Genealogy.com CD-ROMs, all of the names are indexed, and can be
searched using the Search Expert feature, or by browsing through
the master name Index. The CD contains images of each page from
the 46 volumes of the Mayflower Descendant; browsing through,
I did not see any pages that did not reproduce well, and was impressed
with the quality of the images.
While my first instinct to search for my known Mayflower ancestors
was rewarded with many hits, I found myself browsing through the
volumes rather than searching for individuals. The Mayflower
Descendant is a fascinating look at the Pilgrims and Colony
members, with articles on a large variety of subjects; everything
from the division of cattle amongst Plymouth members, to cemetery
records, diaries, church records, vital records, deeds, wills,
depositions, biographical features, inventories, notes, headstone
pictures, autographs, miscellaneous records, in-depth features
on the Mayflower passengers and their life in Plymouth, probate
records, letters, and regular columns can be found in the Descendant's
pages. Volume 17, for example, has the following contents (in
addition to the tables of contents, indexes, and title pages):
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Each volume retains its own title page, as well as the title
page, table of contents, and index of persons and places for each
issue (four issues per volume). I found the Index to Subjects
in this Section, located at the beginning of each volume, the
most useful item; the subject index told me at a glance what church
and cemetery records (items I am particularly interested in, were
included in that issue). Other subjects listed included deeds
(grantors, grantees, and abstracts), information about various
ships, illustrations, marriage records, wills and inventories,
and vital records by town.
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I had so much fun browsing through the CD and reading various
articles, I found myself wishing there was a way to search
for items other than individuals; although the individuals
are searchable, the CD does not provide the user with a
way to search for other text. If you are researching a particular
subject, or are just interested in a specific aspect of
Plymouth Colony life, you can view each issue's subject
and location indexes for items of interest.
When I conducted a search on one of my Mayflower Ancestors,
I found over 400 references to him (and his son, who had
the same name). I also found over 100 references to a Plymouth
Colony member who married a Mayflower passenger, which indicates
the material is not strictly limited to Mayflower passengers.
If you have Mayflower Ancestors you will want to check out
this title — the ability to have 46 volumes of the
informative, fascinating, Mayflower Descendant at
your fingertips, is of interest to all Mayflower and Plymouth
Colony researchers.
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Family
History: New England Families #1 1600s-1800s
(CD 117)
This CD, of particular interest to researchers with New England
ancestors, contains the images of thirteen family histories listing
a total of 113,000 individuals who either lived in New England,
or were mentioned in the genealogy of someone who lived in New
England during the time period of 1600-1800. While each book has
its own index, the fastest searching is accomplished by using
the Family Tree Maker Search Expert or the CD's comprehensive
index of all thirteen books. Most of the books were in good condition
and the images are quite easy to read; even those books which
were in a less-than-desired condition have pages which can be
read by using the Zoom In feature.
The books contained on the CD are:
- A Genealogical History of the Rehoboth Branch of the Carpenter
Family by Amos B. Carpenter (published by Press of Carpenter
& Morehouse, 1898).
- Descendants of Edward Colburn/Coburn, by George A.
Gordon and Silas R. Coburn (published by Walter Coburn, 1913).
- A History of the Town of Keene [MA] by S. G. Griffin
(published by Sentinel Printing Company, 1904).
- History of the Kimball Family in America by Leonard
Allison Morrison and Stephen Paschall Sharples (published by
Damrell & Upham, 1897).
- The Leavitts of America, published by Jane Jenning
Eldredge for the Leavitt Family Association, 1924.
- Register of the Middlebrook Family by Louis F. Middlebrook
(1909)
- Prominent Men and Women of the Day by Thomas W. Herringshaw
(published by A.B. Gehman & Co., 1889).
- History of Salem, MA Vol I by Sidney Perley (1924).
- History of Salem, MA Vol II by Sidney Perley (1926).
- History of Salem, MA Vol III by Sidney Perley (1928).
- Records of William Spooner by Thomas Spooner (1883).
- The History of Weare, New Hampshire by William Little
(published by the town, 1888).
- The History of the Wheeler Family in America compiled
by the American College of Genealogy (published by American
College of Genealogy, 1914).
I have the good fortune of possessing several New England ancestors,
so I was delighted to search this collection of books which I
had not imagined contained references to "my" lines...I was even
more delighted to find mentions of several different ancestors.
My experience drives home the benefit of searching the FamilyFinder
Index, a feature of Family Tree Maker software and also available
for searching online, which contains a list of individuals
on all of the CDs. You may find, as I did, that your ancestors
show up in the most unexpected places! Information contained in
the books on this CD varies widely; I found biographical details,
historical notes, maps of land held by ancestors, wills, family
details by generation, military records, names, dates, locations,
and much more. Pages are easily printed, and you can copy a page
image to the clipboard where you can later save or modify the
image using a graphics program.
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The introduction to the CD mentions occasional instances
when a name in the index may not be found on the page listed;
I found this to be true in a few cases. For the majority
of the names, I found the reference on the next or prior
page (most often as a footnote which was continued on multiple
pages).
A further note in the Introduction states that some occurrences
of indecipherable names can be found in the index. I noticed
this in particular with my Allerton family; in three instances
it is listed in the index as "??? Allerton," and
in all three cases I found the names quite easily read (although
I must admit some of the pages are difficult to read unless
you zoom in and increase the image size). Overall, my experience
with this title was a very positive one and I would recommend
the resource to interested researchers.
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Family
History: English Origins of New England Families, 1500s-1800s
(CD 181)
Do you have New England Roots? If they are deep enough to reach
back to the Colonial period, you may be able to find your New
England ancestors on this Family Archive. The contents are from
the Genealogical Publishing Company's English Origins of New
England Families, and it contains the actual images from the
entire collection: Series 1 (Volumes 1-3) and Series 2 (Volumes
1-3). Together, all six volumes reference over 143,000 individuals.
Because the CD contains images of the books, you can easily print
selected articles, a specific page, or just copy an image for
later use in a graphics program or word processor. Included on
the CD are the original Introductions, Tables of Contents, and
Indexes for each volume (searching the entire Family Archive is
best accomplished by using the Search Expert function or by viewing
the comprehensive Index of all six volumes). The images are very
clear and easy to read.
The first series of books contains articles which were printed
in the prestigious New England Historical and Genealogical
Register between 1907 and 1967 for the Committee on English
and Foreign Research. The introduction to the first volume points
out that "almost all contemporary Americans with colonial Yankee
forebears will descend from several of the 1,000 [people of immigrant
origins]..." and indeed, I found several of my New England ancestors.
In addition to the articles written under the auspices of the
Committee on English and Foreign Research, two other important
series of articles can be found: Genealogical Gleanings Among
the English Archives (published 1900-1905), and English Will
Abstracts (published 1897-1900).
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The second series consists of all other immigrant origin
data published in 137 volumes of the NEHGS Register,
not sponsored by the Committee on English and Foreign Research.
However, it is important to note that although the series
includes biographies and family histories for those individuals
which have immigrant origin data, the series (and hence
the Family Archive) may not contain all the information
about those individuals printed in the Register! The Introduction
to the second series notes that "Purposely excluded were
all queries...biographies, memorials, diaries, letters,
or historical articles that cover immigrants but contain
little or no data regarding their origin..."
Regardless, the articles provide much insight into the
individuals' lives — names, dates, and locations are
of course mentioned, but so are land records, military records,
royal descents, Mayflower ancestry, letters, pedigree charts,
wills, parish records, histories, notes, and much more.
I found the information compiled very interesting and worthwhile,
and believe the immigrant origin data culled from years
of notable NEHGS Register articles well worth the
investment.
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Marthe Arends has
been involved in genealogy for 18 years. She has lectured on computers and genealogy
to many groups, has been the SysOp of a Fidonet genealogy BBS, has written articles
for a variety of genealogy publications, and currently writes fiction. Marthe has also written Genealogy
Software Guide and Genealogy
on CD-ROM, both published by the Genealogical
Publishing Company.
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