The Register

Submit an Article

We welcome submissions of articles, especially from new authors.

BROADENED EDITORIAL FOCUS

Whether or not you have written for the Register previously, you might find that your research fits well within our broadened editorial focus, to help American Ancestors advance the study of family history in America and beyond.

We seek articles on:

• Families in or outside of New England or New York, or families that migrated west.
• Families of Irish, African American, Native American, Italian, Jewish, Portuguese, Dutch, German, French Canadian, or other backgrounds.
• Families that arrived in America as recently as the nineteenth or twentieth century.

TYPES OF ARTICLES

Our articles usually fall into one of the following categories:

• Immigrant origins with a genealogical summary.
• Problem-solving articles with a genealogical summary.
• Genealogical accounts of families, especially families for which no genealogy now exists. Because of space constraints, these accounts should normally be limited to three generations.
• Source material.
   

We rarely accept articles written in a “travelogue” style, describing the research process; we prefer instead to publish the results of research.

WRITING GUIDELINES

• Write using Microsoft Word, using 12-point type, with notes in 10-point type, with 1.5-inch side margins. You can download a Register template or use Microsoft Word’s “normal” style.
• Please do not create your own formatting and styles; do not use any automatic features or indexing.
• Articles should be 6,000 words or less.
• If applicable, try to identify the parents of spouses mentioned in the article.
• Pay attention to double dating, i.e., dates in January through March before 1752. It may be necessary to view the original record (if possible) to determine the correct date.
• Ensure that you have included a citation for each statement of fact that is not common knowledge. Each should be cited to one or more reliable sources. Download citation guidelines below.
• Once you have given a full title in a note, use a short title in later notes. Do not use ibid.
   

If you are writing about a seventeenth-century New England family, please consult the following three works and review the sources suggested in each:

• Clarence Almon Torrey, New England Marriages Prior to 1700, CD-ROM (American Ancestors, 2011), which is also available on CD-ROM and as a database at AmericanAncestors.org.
• Melinde Lutz Sanborn, Third Supplement to Torrey’s New England Marriages Prior to 1700 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2003).
• Martin E. Hollick, New Englanders in the 1600s: A Guide to Genealogical Research Published Between 1980 and 2010, Expanded Edition (American Ancestors, 2012).
   

Remember that we are interested in the contents of your article more than the typographic style and formatting. You might find it useful to download and use our Register template. We also recommend reviewing relevant chapters in Guide to Genealogical Writing (American Ancestors, 2014) and reading “ Writing a Family Sketch in Register Style,” New England Ancestors 8:3 (Summer 2007):41–42, 45.

Download a Register-style template

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

• Submit a description of your article in advance.
• Please limit articles to 6,000 words or less.
• Submit your article as an email attachment to register@americanancestors.org. If you prefer to submit a paper copy, or a file on CD, send to Editor, Register, P.O. Box 7786, Tacoma, WA 98417.
• Please consider sending us copies or scans of original documents along with your article.
• Please do not submit articles that have been published previously, either in print or online.
• Please do not submit an article that you are also submitting to another journal.
   

You should receive an acknowledgment within two weeks but may not learn for several months whether your article has been accepted for publication. Once accepted, it may not be published for at least one year.
If your article is accepted, you will receive a standard Register permission letter to sign. The letter grants American Ancestors a perpetual non-exclusive right to publish. During the editing process you will be able to review and comment on editorial changes to your article.