Published more than 125 years ago, this important resource compiles documents listing seventeenth-century English immigrants to New England, the Chesapeake, and the Caribbean. It remains an invaluable resource for anyone with such ancestry. Includes a comprehensive index.

Compiled documents include:

Barber and Howe’s collaboration, originally published in 1841, opens with a general history of the state, followed by the details of each town, arranged alphabetically by county, then town, then city or village. Entries contain geographical and architectural descriptions, original Native American place names, political and religious history, population statistics, and interesting anecdotes about the activities of certain residents. Generously illustrated with Barber’s fine engravings and often accompanied by a verbal description of his impressions of the scene.

Wyman’s work, compiled over thirty years and originally published in 1879, is notable not only as a comprehensive collection of genealogies of early settlers but also as an abstract of real estate records, church records, gravestone inscriptions, and family records, thus giving us a picture of both the people and places in the town. His compilation remains a reliable and highly detailed source for historians of early Charlestown.

By Thomas Wyman

Foreword by Roger Thompson

6 x 9 paperback, 1,208 pages in 2 vols.

First published in the Register in 1860, this volume, much like Hotten’s The Original Lists of Persons of Quality , compiles passenger lists and other documents from the British Archives relevant to early migration to New England.

Compiled by Royal Ralph Hinman, Secretary of the State of Connecticut from 1825 to 1842, this listing of Connecticut settlers includes for many the time of their arrival in the colony, their standing in society, and their place of residence. Hinman strove to include all the settlers he could find on record, continuing to add sections to this work as he discovered new information. Originally published in 1846, this resource is still valuable to family historians today.

By Royal R. Hinman

Foreword by Christopher C. Child

Originally published in 1909, this history of westward expansion provides an important context and framework for anyone researching their early New England and pioneer ancestors.

Topics include the socio-economic and religious impetuses for migrating first to New England and then westward, war’s impact on the ever-shifting frontier, the settlers’ relationship with Native Americans, the history of the formation of new states, and more.

William Aspinwall arrived with the Winthrop fleet in 1630, moved from the Massachusetts Bay Colony to Rhode Island, Connecticut, and back to Boston. As Recorder of the Suffolk County Court in Boston from November 1644 until October 1651, he kept careful records of every document he notarized-including letters of attorney, marriage contracts, and property and estate transactions. This compilation of those records provides invaluable insight to historians and genealogists alike.

This important classic work, first published in 1930, lists the names of immigrants to New England during the Great Migration, 1620–1640: more than 3,500 names of passengers on 96 ships. Going year by year, for each person, Banks lists full name, the name of the ship, believed place of origin, and residence in America. The book also includes an essay called “A Study of the Emigrants and Emigration in Colonial Times.” A key source for American Ancestors’s Great Migration Study Project, the book also includes comprehensive indexes.

By Charles Edward Banks

The years 1634 and 1635 were watershed years for New England immigration. The influx of immigrants represents twenty percent or more of the entire Great Migration period. Like The Great Migation Begins, these books continue to identify and document early New England families.

Author: Robert Charles Anderson, George F. Sanborn, Melinde Lutz Sanborn

Published: 1999

Under the leadership of Robert Charles Anderson, the Great Migration Study Project aims to compile authoritative genealogical and biographical accounts of every person who settled in New England between 1620 and 1640. The Great Migration Newsletter has been a cornerstone publication within this project for the last twenty years and offers researchers essential articles on migration patterns, early records, life in seventeenth-century New England, and more. 

For those who own previously published compendia, a separate compilation of the final five volumes.