Published quarterly since 1847, The New England Historical and Genealogical Register is the flagship journal of American genealogy and the oldest in the field.
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1. Sampson1 Dunbar was born, probably in Braintree, Massachusetts, 16 June 1721, and he died in Stoughton, Massachusetts, 15 August 1804. Like many colonial families of color, little about Sampson Dunbar and his family has been published. This article attempts to provide a complete account of this black patriot and his family.
With the publication of articles like this, it becomes more and more important to be aware of the growing body of documented accounts of families of color in New England. This article cites several articles and books on families of color in Massachusetts and Maine, such as Joseph Carvalho’s Black Families in Hampden County, Massachusetts, 1650–1865. This and other works are listed in African American Resources at the New England Historic Genealogical Society: A Selected Bibliography, published by NEHGS in 2010.
When you are compiling information on a family, it is important to determine who the experts are. The sons-in-law of Sampson were named Easton, Sewall, and Talbot, and fortunately the authors and editors received extensive help from experts on these particular families. The experts even provided their own unpublished research for the article.
Editor’s comment: Always assume there might be something in print on the families you’re working on, or that someone may have already researched one of these families.