The following book review was written by Bobbi King:
Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families
Douglas Richardson, author, and Kimball G. Everingham, editor.
Published by Douglas Richardson. (Salt Lake City: 2nd ed., 2011).
Paperbound, 4 volumes; more than 2500 pages; bibliography; indices of people and events.
The Magna Carta (“Great Charter”) is the charter of liberties granted by King John of England, first issued in 1215. The Charter was forced upon the King by a rebellion of his feudal lords, and the charter led to way to the establishment of English civil law. It influenced New England settlers’ customs of governance, and inspired the ideas contained with the Constitution of the United States. The text of the Charter is transcribed in the introductory pages of Volume 1 (“23. No village or individual shall be forced to make bridges over the rivers, with the exception of those who from of old, and of right ought to do it.”)
Douglas Richardson, author, and Kimball G. Everingham, editor.
Published by Douglas Richardson. (Salt Lake City: 2nd ed., 2011).
Paperbound, 4 volumes; more than 2500 pages; bibliography; indices of people and events.
The Magna Carta (“Great Charter”) is the charter of liberties granted by King John of England, first issued in 1215. The Charter was forced upon the King by a rebellion of his feudal lords, and the charter led to way to the establishment of English civil law. It influenced New England settlers’ customs of governance, and inspired the ideas contained with the Constitution of the United States. The text of the Charter is transcribed in the introductory pages of Volume 1 (“23. No village or individual shall be forced to make bridges over the rivers, with the exception of those who from of old, and of right ought to do it.”)
The book follows the lines of descent for approximately 200 seventeenth-century North American colonists from the Magna Carta Sureties of 1215, that is, the descents of 17 (there were a total of 25) Magna Carta Barons who were the elected enforcers of the Charter.
There are 240 colonial immigrant families who are the subject of this series. The chapters are arranged alphabetically by surname. Citations and explanatory footnotes are prodigious; the bibliography is 72 pages, and the index of people (volume 4) is 46 pages.
For a previous and comprehensive description of the first edition of the series by Dick Eastman, see
http://goo.gl/0jEJg.
Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families is available directly from the author at http://www.royalancestry.net/ and from Amazon.com at http://goo.gl/NjstQ as well as from many other bookstores.
