This week I had a chance to read a book with a very long title: Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700. In fact, this is the eighth edition of a book first published in 1950 by Frederick Lewis Weis. Following Mr. Weis' death, later editions were continued by the late Walter Lee Shepard, Jr. The Eighth Edition is edited with additions and corrections by William R. Beall and Kaleen E. Beall.
Ancestral Roots details the royal ancestry of many colonists who came to America before the year 1700. The Eighth Edition includes much additional information found in recent years in the area of royal genealogy. Out of a total of 398 ancestral lines, 91 have been extensively revised and 60 have been added, while almost all lines have had at least some minor corrections, amounting altogether to a 30 percent increase in text.
A few previously-accepted lines have now been disproved and therefore eliminated from this book. If you believe that you have a royal descent, based upon a previous edition of Ancestral Roots, you would be well advised to verify that the Eighth Edition agrees.
It is surprising how many of the early colonists had royal ancestry. This book traces many of the lines back to Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, Malcolm of Scotland, Robert the Strong, Saxon and English monarchs, Gallic monarchs, early kings of Scotland and Ireland, kings and princes of Wales, Gallo-Romans and Alsatians, Norman and French barons, the Riparian branch of the Merovingian House, Merovingian kings of France, Isabel de Vermandois, and William de Warenne.
Ancestral Roots is full of abbreviations, obviously for the purpose of saving space. A few minutes studying the Genealogical Terms section makes the reading much easier. The book also contains a list of all the immigrants to Colonial America who are listed within its pages. If you can find one of your ancestors listed on page xi or xii (Roman numerals), it should be easy to find their ancestry back to royalty in the following pages. For the first time, thanks to the efforts of the new editors, this edition contains an every-name index, replacing the cumbersome indexes of the past. Ancestral Roots also contains extensive source citations as to where the original information was found.
A great deal of information is packed into this 359-page book. If you have an interest in royal genealogy, or if you believe that some of your early colonial ancestors may have had royal ancestry, you will want to read this book.
Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 sells for $35.00 plus taxes and shipping. You can purchase it from almost any book store if you specify ISBN 0806317523. You can also order it on the publisher's (Genealogical Publishing Company) Web site via a safe and secure shopping cart system at http://genealogical.com/item_detail.asp?afid=&ID=6193.
