The following announcement was written by the American Society of Genealogists:
At their meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, on 1 November 2008, the American Society of Genealogists voted to give their annual Donald Lines Jacobus Award to Wayne G. Tillinghast for his book, The Tillinghasts in America, The First Four Generations.
Published in 2006 by the Rhode Island Genealogical Society (www.RIGenSoc.org), this work is a classic genealogy, tracing the descendants, both male and female, of Elder Pardon Tillinghast (ca. 1622–1718), who settled at Providence in or before 1645. Despite the subtitle of the book, many descendants in the fifth and sixth generations are treated, Intermarriages with other Rhode Island families make this genealogy almost a Who’s Who of colonial Providence. Thoroughly documented, extensive biographical detail includes much Rhode Island history and corrects previous errors. As noted in a review in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register (161 [2007]:73), “The discussion of difficult problems is impressive.”
Mr. Tillinghast graduated with honors from the University of Connecticut School of Law, and practices in Norwich, Connecticut. He has authored several historical and genealogical articles for legal publications as well as for Rhode Island Roots.
The Donald Lines Jacobus Award was established in 1972 to encourage sound scholarship in genealogical writing. It is presented to a model genealogical work published within the previous five years. A list of the books receiving the award in previous years appears on the American Society of Genealogists website (www.fasg.org). Anyone planning to publish their own research, especially as a compiled genealogy or family history, would do well to study the format and style of these books.
