If you have early New England ancestry, you should recognize the name Robert Charles Anderson. If you don't already know that name, I suggest you read this announcement closely. This information may greatly simplify your family tree searches as well as increase the accuracy of information you may have already found.
Robert Charles Anderson is one of the best-known and most highly-respected New England genealogists of this generation. He is the Director of the Great Migration Study Project, and a Fellow of the American Society of Genealogists (FASG), a group of genealogy scholars where he has served as Secretary, Vice President, and President. He is best known for his three-volume work, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633, published by the New England Historic Genealogical Society, and for his even bigger follow-on project that is still in progress: The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635. He has also published a companion volume, The Pilgrim Migration: Immigrants to Plymouth Colony, 1620-1633.
Bob is a former Board Member of the National Genealogical Society, and GENTECH, Inc., editor of the Great Migration Newsletter, and co-editor of The American Genealogist.
Bob's biggest work is “Great Migration” Series and the first six volumes of that series are now available online on the New England Historic Genealogical Society's web site. The following announcement was written by that organization:
NEHGS OFFERS MAJOR COMPENDIA ONLINE
Volume I of Important “Great Migration” Series Now Available Online.
Boston, MA – July 2008 – New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston announces the online availability of the first of six volumes from the ground-breaking series, “The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England 1634-1635.”
This series follows “The Great Migration Begins,” which covered New England migration between 1620 and 1633. During those first years, only a few hundred people stepped on the shores of New England in any given year. But in 1634 and 1635, that number surged, with as many as 2,500 people immigrating to New England in each of those years.
With that surge came new families, new business, and new towns, including Concord, Weymouth, Newbury, and Hingham, Massachusetts, as well as Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor, Connecticut.
This first volume was originally published in 1999 and covers surnames A-B. It is free to all NEHGS members on their award-winning Web site www.NewEnglandAncestors.org.
“This series represents some of the most important research we have ever published,” said NEHGS President and CEO D. Brenton Simons. “The earliest history of our country started with these pioneers, and this compendia offers information on them that is available no where else.”
Some of the notable families in this volume include, William Almy, Joan Antrobus, Richard Bellingham, Thomas Bradbury, Humphrey Bradstreet, Thomas Brigham, and Peter Bulkeley.
The new online databases include information on where these ancestors came from, how they got here, who they married, their financial status as revealed by their estate, and return trips to their countries of origin.
The goal of the Great Migration Study Project is to create comprehensive biographical and genealogical accounts of all immigrants to New England from 1620 to 1643, from the arrival of the Mayflower to the decline of immigration resulting from the beginning of the Civil War in England. The Project was conceived by Robert Charles Anderson and was proposed to the New England Historic Genealogical Society early in 1988. This series was written by Robert Charles Anderson, FASG, George F. Sanborn, FASG, Melinde Lutz Sanborn, FASG.
All volumes in the Great Migration series are available for purchase at NewEnglandAncestors.org or by calling Rick Park at 617-226-1212.
About NEHGS
Founded in 1845, New England Historic Genealogical Society is the country's oldest and largest non-profit genealogical organization. Located in Boston, NEHGS collects, preserves, and interprets materials that help make accessible the histories of families in America. The NEHGS research library, one of the most respected genealogical libraries in the field, is home to millions books, journals, manuscripts, photographs, microfilms, documents, records, and artifacts that date back more than four centuries. The award-winning web site www.NewEnglandAncestors.org offers access to more than 110 million names in 2,400 searchable databases. NEHGS has more than 23,000 members nationally. NEHGS staff includes some of the leading expert genealogists in the country, specializing in early American, Irish, English, Italian, Scottish, Atlantic and French Canadian, and Jewish genealogy.
I didn't notice if you or the announcement stated this, but a person will be required to pay to access this database. A yearly subscription to the web site costs $75.
Since I have many Massachusetts ancestors and relatives, I find this subscription to be cost effective. For those who can't afford it, subscribing to your MA county of interest email list via Rootsweb.com will help you to ask for occasional lookups on the NEHGS web site.
Posted by: Susan Daily | July 18, 2008 at 10:13 AM
I first encountered Mr. Anderson's books at our library and found them so well-researched and documented that I was encouraged (twice) to sail with him on the Wholly-Genes genealogy cruises. May he live to 100 with the sound mind and memory he has.
Happy Dae.
http://www.ShoeStringGenealogy.com
Posted by: Dae Powell | July 18, 2008 at 11:16 AM
As part of a professional genealogy research firm, our researchers are always instructed to compare the early New England immigrant origins listed in databases like Ancestral File against Mr. Anderson's books. Mr. Anderson's research corrects errors found in such databases (many genealogists guess at immigrant origins without gathering adequate evidence) and helps us trace clients' pedigrees correctly. I'm a big fan!
Posted by: Nathan W. Murphy, MA, AG | July 18, 2008 at 11:33 AM
The $75 subscription fee is nominal when you realize how much information is available. If you have any New England ancestry at all or do research for others, this site is definitely for you!
Posted by: Andrea Hajducko | July 19, 2008 at 06:58 AM
I tried to find my ancestors in 1635 that come from England and the only thing i could find are websites trying to sell you things...
Do you know a website that can help me?? I guess i will spend my collage allawnce on buying the books i need to do this project:(
Posted by: Niomi Wallows | October 23, 2008 at 11:27 AM