Biography & Autobiography - Historical

Between 1913 and 1916, William Richard Cutter published four separate series entitled "New England Families, Genealogical and Memorial." The First Series, published in 1913, featured genealogical and biographical essays on nearly 1,000 New England families. The Second Series (1914), while containing some families not...

This account of Newton, Massachusetts, covers the early history of the town and biographical information about its pioneers. An extensive Genealogical Register contains the names of all the inhabitants of Newton prior to 1800, with such facts concerning them as the author could glean...

In this pioneering work, E. A. Louhi recounts the various expeditions of Finns to Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, and, to a lesser extent, the Elk and South Rivers in Maryland throughout the colonial period. Finns appeared for the first time among the passengers on...

Donald Monro, Archdeacon of the Isles before the Protestant Reformation, wrote the first known description of the Western Isles of Scotland from personal observation. Written in 1549, Monro's work has been highly valued for the light it sheds on the history, topography, and philology...

This is the most authoritative work on the coats of arms in the world. The descriptions of the arms cover those of more than 100,000 families, alphabetically arranged and accurately described. The work was compiled from hundreds of armorials and it contains an extensive...

Between 1900 and 1903, James Hathaway compiled and edited what is now regarded as the supreme collection of genealogical source records on the Old Albemarle region of North Carolina, issued quarterly in eleven numbers of 160 pages each. "The North Carolina Historical and Genealogical...

Tucker County was created out of Randolph County, West Virginia in 1856. For this book, author Hu Maxwell combines political history and the progress of local institutions with sketches of contemporary luminaries and their families. Thus the volume opens with a discussion of the...

This is still the best source on the founding and founders of this pivotal Kentucky county. Roughly half of the book is devoted to the county's geology and geography, first settlers and settlements, churches and schools, courts and jails, newspapers, cemeteries, and other county...

There are a lot of textbooks that describe how to find your ancestors; this one by Richard Hite clarifies how not to. In short, "Sustainable Genealogy" explains how to avoid the traps many family historians can fall into. Whether it's a proud family legend,...

The Lewis family of Warner Hall, York County, Va. probably descends from Robert Lewis of Brecon, Wales who came to Virginia in 1635. This book traces his descendants in the male and female lines, and descents from other early Virginia families. The bulk of...

This work lists 20,000 genealogies that were not in the Library of Congress when the Bibliography and First Supplement were published. It includes additions and corrections to those volumes as well as an index of 10,000 secondary names. Code letters designate the libraries in...

This "Supplement to Genealogies in the Library of Congress" lists all genealogies in the Library of Congress that were catalogued between 1972 and 1976, showing acquisitions made by the Library in the five years since publication of the original two-volume Bibliography. Arranged alphabetically by...

When "Tidewater Virginia Families" was published by Genealogical Publishing Company in 1990 it was considered a landmark publication, so powerful a contribution to Virginia genealogy that it was numbered among a handful of genealogical compendia that would command the respect and admiration of all...

This book belongs in every American genealogical library because it covers many of the leading families of the mid-Atlantic region and includes the entire progeny of the councillors--including daughters of daughters of daughters, sons of sons of sons, cadet branches who moved west, and...

This is a consolidated edition of a scarce and very important periodical. Originally titled "Early Settlers of Western New York," then, after its scope was broadened, "Early Settlers of New York State," its nine volumes were issued in monthly, bimonthly, and finally quarterly installments....

It is well known that Cape Cod families are difficult to trace. Only the probate records survived the burning of the Barnstable County Courthouse in 1827, and similar disasters have taken their toll of the Cape's town records. This was precisely the predicament Col....

It is well known that Cape Cod families are difficult to trace. Only the probate records survived the burning of the Barnstable County Courthouse in 1827, and similar disasters have taken their toll of the Cape's town records. This was precisely the predicament Col....

In 1811 Mexico declared its independence from Spain and established itself as a republic. The new government made contracts with Empresarios (contractors) to bring specific number of families into the State of Coahuila and Texas. Stephen Austin was the first and most successful of...

To qualify for membership in the National Society of Daughters of Founders and Patriots of America (NSDFP), one must possess a Founder ancestor who arrived in one of the colonies between May 13, 1607, and May 13, 1686, and a Patriot ancestor who rendered...

"Gateway to the West," a periodical published from 1967 to 1978, covered some of the least accessible but most important genealogical records of 76 of Ohio's 88 counties. From common pleas court records, guardianships, naturalizations and deed abstracts to the more conventional records of...

"The Gentleman's Magazine" was founded in London in 1731. The first publication of its type, it featured a broad mix of news, essays, poetry, parliamentary debates, book reviews, and antiquarian notes. For the genealogist it is an absolute treaure-house of useful data. From the...

Of the three periodicals which were originally devoted to Virginia genealogy and history, the "William and Mary College Quarterly" was the most scholarly. Its contribution in the field of family history made it the fountainhead of Virginia genealogy. This five-volume series contains every family...

This valuable two-volume set on Pennsylvania genealogy is composed of articles excerpted from "The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography." It contains all but one of the family history articles (this appeared as a book in 1913) that were in the Magazine up to...

With few exceptions, this work identifies every family that can be traced to the Passaic Valley prior to 1800. It is a massive compilation, treating several generations in the direct line, and it is surprisingly good in the elucidation of family relationships. Several years...

The German New River Settlement, contiguous to but not technically part of the Middle New River Settlement of Southwest Virginia, occupied an area consisting roughly of the contemporary counties of Giles, Montgomery, and Pulaski. It was settled in the mid-18th century by Rhinelanders from...

Following an introductory section devoted to a chronological list of European explorers and traders who made the first tentative soundings in Maine, the bulk of this book consists of a detailed history and description of each river settlement. Appended to the histories is an...

In 1905 Crozier launched an ambitious series entitled "Virginia County Records." This volume includes: Accomack Co. Land Grants; Chesterfield Co. Wills; Henrico Co. Land Grants and Other Records; Northampton Co. Wills; Orange Co. Marriage Bonds; Richmond Co. Land Grants; Lists of Early Settlers, Militia,...

In 1891, John Bernard Burke published a single volume covering the lineages of many of the leading colonial families of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the West Indies, South Africa, and other parts of the British Empire. Researchers should note that among the Canadian families...

Gilmer's Georgians, as this work is usually referred to, is a classic account of the first settlers of Upper Georgia. Clearfield's edition is a reprint of the revised and corrected edition of 1926 and includes an index prepared by the Georgia Department of Archives...

This is the sixth volume in the outstanding seven-volume series by Frederick A. Virkus. It contains portraits, about 7,800 lineage records, and more than 60,000 names in the index.Author: Frederick A. VirkusISBN-10: 0806303670ISBN-13: 9780806303673Publisher: Genealogical Publishing CompanyLanguage: EnglishPublished: 06/05/2012Pages: 952Format: PaperbackWeight: 2.75lbsSize: 9.00h x...

This is a collection of genealogical and historical records--land grants, tax records, and birth, death, and marriage records--of early Albemarle County, the original gateway to the present State of North Carolina. Ray further includes genealogical notices and histories of these families: Barrett, Bryan, Cotton,...

An insider's view of cultural innovations in the Kennedy era and beyond Selected as Secretary of the Interior by President John F. Kennedy, Stewart Udall had the idea to invite Robert Frost to take part in Kennedy's inauguration. Frost's unforgettable performance at that event...

Another Hungary tells the stories of eight remarkable individuals: an aristocrat, merchant, engineer, teacher, journalist, rabbi, tobacconist, and writer. All eight came from the same woebegone corner of prewar Hungary. Their biographies illuminate how the region's residents made sense of economic underdevelopment, ethnic diversity,...

Julian Bell explores the life of a younger member, and sole poet, of the Bloomsbury Group, the most important community of British writers and intellectuals in the twentieth century, which includes Virginia Woolf (Julian's aunt), E. M. Forster, the economist John Maynard Keynes, and...

This book has a dual purpose. The first is to present a biography of Yamato Ichihashi, a Stanford University professor who was one of the first academics of Asian ancestry in the United States. The second purpose is to present, through Ichihashi's wartime writings,...

If Horatio Alger had imagined a female heroine in the same mold as one of the young male heroes in his rags-to-riches stories, she would have looked like Belinda Mulrooney. Smart, ambitious, competitive, and courageous, Belinda Mulrooney was destined through her legendary pioneering in...

William O. Stoddard's memoirs as President Abraham Lincoln's third secretary reveal a perspective of the president rarely viewed. In this collection of 120 weekly dispatches submitted to the New York Examiner under the pseudonym "Illinois," Stoddard sheds new light on Lincoln and his era....

One of the most controversial and romantic figures in American history, John C. Fr mont experienced a dizzying succession of public triumphs and humiliations. He made his name exploring the West, surveying, mapping, and describing the Rockies, the Great Basin, and Oregon country. Allan...

"War seems inevitable," wrote Judith W. McGuire in her diary on 10 May 1861, shortly after the firing on Fort Sumter. Fervently loyal to the South, she was packing up valuables at her home in Alexandria, Virginia, where the Confederate flag already waved. With...

Charles Erskine Scott Wood (1852-1944) led an exuberant life that seemed to embrace the entire nation and its times. Wood remembered seeing Abraham Lincoln, he knew Chief Joseph, Clarence Darrow, and Lincoln Steffens, and he survived to the dawn of the atomic era. Among...

"You know, a lot of people like to talk about it, and I'm always pushing, pushing away, you know, I'm always pushing. I hate to remember, I hate to talk about it." But in the wake of her husband's death, and afraid that the...

"There is no equal justice for Black people today; there never has been. To our everlasting shame, the quality of justice in America has always been and is now directly related to the color of one's skin as well as to the size of...

"Modesty, softness, and mildness"-such was John Calvin, in his own words. This brief self-portrait will surprise posterity, quick as it is to detect in Calvin a deeply passionate man of zealous action. Calvin adds elsewhere: "I acknowledge myself to be timid, soft, and cowardly...

Closely Guarded is written by a man who was privy to some of the most closely guarded state secrets in Canada. From 1942 to 1973, John Starnes was engaged in such areas as communications intelligence and, during his tenure as the first civilian director-general...

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to be English and Catholic was to face persecution, financial penalties, and sometimes death. Yet some English Catholics prospered, reconciling their faith and loyalty to their country. Among the most prominent was George Calvert, a talented and ambitious...

Before France became France its territories included Occitania, roughly the present-day province of Languedoc. The city of Narbonne was a center of Occitanian commerce and culture during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. For most of the second half of the twelfth century, that city...

Don Isaac Abravanel (1437-1508) was a major historical figure during the waning of the Middle Ages. Statesman, diplomat, courtier, and financier, he was, at the same time, a scholar of encyclopedic learning, a philosopher, an exegete, a prolific author, a mystic, and an apocalyptist....

Many know the name Uncas only from James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans, but the historical Uncas flourished as an important leader of the Mohegan people in seventeenth-century Connecticut. In Uncas: First of the Mohegans, Michael Leroy Oberg integrates the life story...

Don Isaac Abravanel (1437-1508) was a major historical figure during the waning of the Middle Ages. Statesman, diplomat, courtier, and financier, he was, at the same time, a scholar of encyclopedic learning, a philosopher, an exegete, a prolific author, a mystic, and an apocalyptist....

An essential text for understanding Socrates, Xenophon's Memorabilia is the compelling tribute of an affectionate student to his teacher, providing a rare firsthand account of Socrates' life and philosophy. The Memorabilia is invaluable both as a work of philosophy in its own right and...