3 comments about A New Voyage to Carolina.

1. Young John Lawson describes his adventure canoing and hiking through the Carolina Coastal Plain and Piedmont in the winter of 1700. Lawson's descriptions are detailed, especially of the many generous Native Americans who helped him on his way. His journey started in Charleston, continued through the Charlotte area, then east to Okeneechee Village on the Eno River (now Hillsborogh) and on to the coast near New Bern. This book is an unknown classic.



2. Being born and rasied in South Carolina, I thought it a very interesting read. I know a lot of the places he is referring too.
   
   Ray



3. John Lawson is my immigrant ancestor, and a legend in my family, and yet I was 52 years old before I knew this book was still in print. I was thrilled to find out, and gave it to my siblings and cousins for Christmas. Reading the book was an amazing experience to me, because I felt I was reading it from the inside out. I understand John Lawson so well, and he gave me the gift of understanding myself better.
   
   For people who don't have a personal stake in the story, it's still an amazing read. Lawson was an excellent writer, a keen observer and his sensibilities are such that he was able to see all that was admirable about the native Americans without losing sight of all that was horrific. He was a victim of that paradox, as he was burned alive by the people he so admired.
   
   He is known as one of the nation's first humorists, I learned, and in my own generation I see his dry wit. It's also interesting to me that in my generation, there are two professional writers and one humor columnist, and we all recognized our own voices in his.
   
   He was a man who left a very comfortable life in London to come and trek through North Carolina before it existed. He chose to begin his trip at the end of December -- a fact that I find astounding -- and he describes life-threatening incidents as if they were minor inconveniences. The courage and love of adventure that define his spirit shine through on every page. Regardless of my lack of objectivity, he was a remarkable man; he wrote a remarkable book.

2 comments about Researching Your Colonial New England Ancestors.

1. For close to 10 years I have been researching a great-great-great-great-grandfather. And another g-g-g-g-grandfather on the maternal side for close to 8 years -- and for the FIRST time in a LONG time, I actually have a plan of action!!!! Chapter Two is titled "Finding Information on Your Colonial Ancestors". Two sentences and the action item list starts -- 9 things to do. Now some of them I've seen in various forms but not THIS concise and straight forward.
   
   Chapter One has info on the colonial calendar. For genealogical research, one looks for dates -- we LOVE dates. Well let's just say that George Washington was born on Feb 11 AND on Feb 22!!! And she explains how and why! And you understand it immediately! Which may explain why you have two birth dates for some early ancestor.
   
   How to research colonial records - the very first bullet I'm sure I've read before. Probably many times but clearly states to not research your ancestor but to research the ***jurisdictions*** and records. Well, duh! Makes sense but I'm totally guilty of what she said NOT to do.
   
   Well sourced, tons of references -- this was published in 2006. I'm delighted I ordered this book -- I haven't even read it in any detail yet and absolutely KNOW it is going to be one that I reference again and again.



2. This is an excellent resource for those who are researching the genealogy of their Colonial New England ancestors, where to look for information, how to interpret information given the different circumstances of Colonial New England, and what to look out for in terms of bad or incomplete information. Very comprehensive in its scope. Be aware that I am an amateur at Colonial research; more experienced researchers may already be aware of the advice and resources available in this book.

3 comments about Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures (Thinking Gender).

1. By focusing the feminist eye on the transnational and "post-colonial" nations, Alexander offers an opening. . .a way to experience other cultures and transcend our own social locations. Her argument reveals that just because a nation is no longer under direct colonial control, it does not mean that the effects of the colonial mindset have diminshed. We all hold inherited ideologies about what we are. . .but that does not necessarily put us in a victim position. We all have agency, however we exercise this power in different ways. An amazing book that should be read so that the experience of feminism will be seen as what it really is, and not bounded by our ideas of "Women Power" residing in the white, middle-class agenda.



2. This book is required by several Women's Studies classes around the country. I feel it is too wordy and hard for many students in undergraduate programs to understand. The main issues in the book are hidden behind a large academic language that not all students understand. The points made in the book though, are valid ones.



3. This is a challenging book, but as an edited volume, can be read slowly. A familiarization with writings on the distribution of global capital would be helpful, but if you don't have that background, the introduction to the book outlines some of the major points.

   As a Ph.D. student, I am constantly citing the articles in this volume: one on sexualized flight attendant uniforms in Singapore, one on tourism being based on heterosexuality, another on mati work (which roughly translates as sex work), one on the role of the cinema in shaping ideas of gender and nationhood, and one on how the concept of "sovereignty" applies to Native American politics in the US.

   From my own experience as a TA, I agree this volume is very difficult for most undergraduate students, but this is because they lack the vocabulary to understand what they are reading and to discuss it critically. The book would work well in a class that is focused around globalization and transnationalism, or in an honors level seminar.

3 comments about The Magna Charta Sureties, 1215: The Barons Named in the Magna Charta, 1215, and Some of Their Descendants Who Settled in America During the Early Colonial Years.

1. While there are numerous reference works relating the descendancy of the Magna Charta Barons, this one is concise, documented and continues across the Atlantic to the early Colonists of North America. Being unencumbered with commentaries on historical events, this book reveals lineage after lineage after lineage providing the researcher with an invaluable tool to document centuries of family history.



2. This book is an excellent resource for those researching descents from one of the Magna Carta Barons or those named in the preamble as advisors to King John. Each line is accompanied by a list of sources for the descent from one of the Barons to an American Colonist.



3. The scholarship is excellent, well organized and thorough, although the selection of descendants seems somewhat arbitrary. One wonders how they were selected. The appearance of the book, however, is not as described or pictured. The ad has a handsome black or navy blue book. The one that arrived was not.

No comments about Adventurers of Purse and Person Virginia 1607-1624/5: Families G-P (Volume Two).

5 comments about Princes of Ireland, Planters of Maryland: A Carroll Saga, 1500-1782.

1. I was originally attracted to this book out of a simple curiosity about the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence (Charles Carroll outlived Adams and Jefferson by about six years, or about 56 years after 1776!). On a deeper level, I hoped to learn more about the kind of early capitalist that would be attracted to signing on to the American Revolution in general. What this book helped me discover was a family that had over time become focused, almost obsessed, with making a buck under fairly adverse circumstances (namely, continuing in their Roman Catholic faith that made it difficult for them to thrive, even in an enclave as seemingly sympathetic as colonial Maryland, with its relatively large Catholic population). But when the time came for this family to rise above its simple wealth building and to champion the cause of the Revolution, it did indeed rise to the occasion, however brief and painful the process might be. (Hoffman attends to both the private and public lives of the Carrolls.) The history of the Carrolls is a part of the history of the magic that was the American Revolution. It is not surprising that the book ends abruptly with the death of Charles Carroll's father and his wife, about 10 days apart from one another in 1782 (though there is a brief summing up of Carroll's remaining 50 years and the attention attracted by his death in 1832). The story is told, the dynasty pretty much complete.

   What's the book like? At times it seems downright willfully prosaic, and the story proceeds much like a carefully written doctoral dissertation - all conclusions fully supported and made in as logical a context as possible, all contentions politically correct for our time. Hoffman's goal is of course to be scholarly and thorough, not to be entertaining or controversial. Thus the sweep of this history must emerge and coalesce in the mind of the reader. Leave being beaten over the head with the broader conclusions inherent in the narrative to more popularly written histories.

   Suffice it to say, if you're a municipal library and you need to beef up your Revolutionary War material, this is a prime buy. If you're a true history buff, this would be an excellent choice to work into your reading list. It has the effect of immersing you into the spirit of the times and providing you with detail you could not have imagined you would find interesting (but you do). If you're a casual reader, just be advised - this is heavy stuff. It's not an easy read, but it is ultimately a rewarding one.




2. Ronald Hoffman is an excellent historian who has brought great knowledge of Chesapeake social and cultural history to this biographical work that places three generations of the Carroll family within their colonial context. It is a wonderful biography that gets the reader into the minds and lives of these three Charles Carroll's. But for me the best thing was the number of times it made me think, "Oh, that's how it was." I have read enough colonial history to know that there were lots of tenant laborers and not just slaves in the region, to know that Catholic Maryland quickly became Anglican Maryland, and to know that the Revolution was not just about ideas but also about social change. Ronald Hoffman's narrative, however, really brings these facts home. His book is not about any one of these issues in particular, but in telling the story of three generations of Carroll's in Maryland he brings home the greater circumstances of the colony better than many historians who have set out to make a case for one of the above arguments, or many of the other fascinating takes on early Chesapeake society contained in this highly readable book. I have not read any book lately that I enjoyed more.



3. Traditional patriotism demands that we believe that the founding fathers of America were all great democratic idealist. Although this may have been true for some, many others had no problem with the idea of an elite ruling class, so long as they were considered the elite. Thus the victory over England can be viewed as less of an American Democratic Revolution and more of a power transition from the English crown to the new American aristocracy.
   
   A primary example of this American elite class was Maryland representative Charles Carroll of Carrollton. A signer of the American Declaration of Independence, Charles of Carrollton was a wealthy planter and businessman who became such not by his own doings but primarily through the inheritance and molding of his father, Charles Carroll of Annapolis. Ever mindful of his Irish and Catholic roots and the persecution therein by English aristocrats, the elder Charles did everything in his power to equip his son to fend off those who would attempt to cripple him politically and economically. In so doing, the elder Charles created a mindset of elitism within his son.
   
   This irony is highlighted by Ronald Hoffman in his book, "Princes of Ireland, Planters of Europe," in which he examines the Carroll family and traces how a persecuted family from Ireland in 1500 came to be one of the prominent families in America by the time of the American Revolution



4. This is perhaps the most pleasurable "academic" history I have come across. Although it provides an extensive account of life in the Chesapeake through the lives and business dealings - and there are plenty of those enumerated - of the tenacious Carroll family, I was also struck by Ronald Hoffman's major theme of family continuity, of purpose driven by recollection and ambition that the Carrolls had in spades. The very tightly researched accounts of the family history in Ireland, and of all the other families like them in the chaos of the 17th century, is little short of astonishing. I'll admit to an enduring interest in Irish history, but this one illustrates why Carrolls and others left their broken aristocracy. That continuity touches on my own forebearers, one of whom was a first cousin of Charles Carroll of Carrollton's. She married another Irish immigrant Marylander and set out in 1796 to populate the then frontier in Kentucky with other Catholics, I am sure at direction of one of their neighbors in Upper Marlborough, MD, Fr. John Carroll, first Catholic bishop in America and also Charles' first cousin. A great read on many levels.



5. Purchased this book for my Grandmother. Apparently we are related on her side of the family. Thought she would enjoy reading. I purchased one years ago when my daughter had to do a report on someone famous in your family. I found the book very interesting and informative.

3 comments about Francis Parkman : The Oregon Trail / The Conspiracy of Pontiac (The Library of America).

1. This volume is a reader's delight, for it presents not one but two of Francis Parkman's classic works: The Oregon Trail and The Conspiracy of Pontiac. Rightly hailed as America's greatest historian, in The Oregon Trail Francis Parkman relates a journey to the 1840's American West - undertaken for the express purpose of living among "real" American Indian tribes of the Great Plains before their way of life passed forever. By this experience Parkman hoped to better understand and relate what eastern tribes had so tragically fought for and lost in the preceding century's struggle for the continent. The Oregon Trail is a great book in its own right, and has been reviewed by this reader previously (see more in "About Me/Other Reviews"), but the primary focus of this review is Parkman's study of a crucial chapter in the development of North America as we know it today: the disastrous consequences France's defeat in Canada would bring to the remaining eastern tribes. For this event would inexorably lead to the explosion of the English colonies across lands heretofore held by them under French "dominion".
   
   While the Iroquois Nations had long maintained an uneasy alliance with the English as they pushed their way into the western reaches of New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia, those further west knew what the defeat of the French would bring: utter destruction. The Ottawa, Ojibwa, Pottawattami, Delaware, Shawnee, Illinois, Sauk and Foxes had long fought the intrusion of the arrogant and land-grabbing English from Quebec to the Mississippi. Pontiac himself had fought beside the Marquis de Montcalm as he tried in vain to save New France from ruin during the French & Indian War. But at last, in the mid-1700s France finally capitulated to her English rivals, her hold on the North American continent broken forever. The only task left to the conquerors was to make their way across the Great Lakes, into the valleys of the Ohio, and down the Mississippi into the Illinois country to make their claim upon the former French forts and trading houses. For a brief time a singular leader and a dozen nations blocked their way: Pontiac and his assembled allies.
   
   Parkman sets the stage by briefly relating the history of France and England in America from the early 1600s-1760s, then meticulously details the source of the tribes' many grievances - grievances which would directly lead to Pontiac's bold attempt to decisively halt the English advance.
   
   Though doomed to ultimate defeat against the onslaught of English guns and armies, traders and pioneers, for a short time Pontiac's initiative was remarkably successful. He brought war to nearly all of western America at the same time - from the siege at Detroit to the forests outside the gates of Niagara, from upper Michigan and Wisconsin to the Ohio valley, into western Pennsylvania, Virginia and New York, down the many rivers and tributaries leading into the Mississipi. A dozen forts fell before him and hundreds of miles of frontier settlements emptied in terror.
   
   Parkman's work is perhaps the best chronicle of many of these tribes' last desperate fight for their lives and land. Those interested in the history of the struggles destined to come shortly to the tribes west of the Mississippi will derive much insight from Parkman's treatment of Pontiac's war. For his "conspiracy" was the original "last great battle" for the "American West" - 100 years before the battle for the further western Plains would come to an ignominious close. To understand Pontiac's war, the motives of both his people and the English and French, as well as the burgeoning force who would soon thereafter cast off their identity as "colonists" is to understand much of what would follow as American history.



2. David McCullough and Theodore Roosevelt both say that they consider Francis Parkman to be their favorite historian and the author who had the greatest impact on their own writing. If you read the Oregon Trail you will understand why.
   
   Parkman made his journey in 1846. It was before the Civil War, and 15 or more years before the West portrayed in most westerns. The outposts of the American Fur Company were 700 miles west of the farthest reaches of the U.S. Cavalry, and Parkman was truly on the cutting edge of frontier. This is a very different view of the West than we get from the movies.
   
   What is most interesting here is the portrayal of the American Indian. Traders, merchants, immigrants, trappers, and frontiersmen live side by side with the Sioux Indians. The Sioux are are war with the Crows, and the six nations are gathering to finally wipe the Crows from the face of the earth.
   
   The West resembles a multi-racial society, where the settlers and traders try to get along with everyone, but where the Indians seem to have a little more trouble than the settlers living in peace. The Sioux look upon the trading posts as a source of protection and manufactured goods. They leave the bodies of their dead chiefs on scaffolds nearby Fort Laramie for protection, to keep the Crow from desecrating the bodies of the dead.
   
   There is a great deal of mixture between whites and Indians. Traders and merchants have squaws as mistresses or even wives, and the families, the in-laws, live inside the fort with them. During one pare of the journey, Parkman leaves the Oregon trail to go with a friend and find his dying wife, a Sioux squaw who is with the tribe.
   
   This book is a classic. It is the type that should be read by every educated American. On top of that, it's well written, and as timeless as any modern American history.



3. The Library of America has done it again - directing me toward this priceless book by Francis Parkman, whom I had heard of but never read. It is perhaps the best accounting I have read thus far about the era and aura surrounding historical depictions of the Oregon Trail. It began in diary form, fleshed out later into a splendid historical novel. He is a marvelous writer, a factual storyteller; equal to if not surpassing Mark Twain's captivating talent, in my own opinion; but more importantly, he was a remarkable man of solid character and it is readily apparent, thus adding credibility to his every word. His wit and prose are truly out of the ordinary and he uses both to great effect to capture the imagination of the reader which he accomplishes virtually from the first sentence. A remarkable work and one that will last through ages more, unchallenged as not only the last of it's kind, but as the best benchmark for any historical endeavor that may yet be written about the Oregon Trail.
   
   He was a young adventurer, who set out on the Oregon Trail mostly because he could. His was a journey destined to explore the Indian Nations if he could - in all their original state of gore and glory. This became an obsession; something he required of himself while he was on the prairie - and he shrugged off life-threatening illness, hardship and peril to write it down as he saw it roll before his eyes. They accepted him into their lives and their village, not without some trepidation, but with hospitality as they knew it nonetheless. As he moves within their culture through this short time, he notices everything down to the slightest detail, providing excellent insight into the daily rituals of plains Indian life. His descriptive passages of the moving of the villages, complete with dogs, children, warriors and old mothers, fathers and, of course, the Chief are remarkable in that it required not only tactful diplomacy, but astonishing bravery as well. He remarked, but did not dwell on it, nonetheless, the reader senses the acute danger present with every step along a path such as this.
   
   There was also much humor through everyday occurrences that he never failed to note. One passage comes to mind from pages 206/207 and it's regarding, of all things, a dog being admonished for bad behavior by one of the native women: "....scolding an old yellow dog, who lay on the ground with his nose resting between his paws, and his eyes turned sleepily upward to her face, as if he were pretending to give full respectful attention, but resolved to fall asleep as soon as it was all over.."
   
   His eyes beheld Fort Laramie in it's hey day, the mountain men of self-exile and boundless energy when in pursuit of the beaver, the lazy and the disagreeable, the "complexions" that had little to do with who you were in such a primitive yet natural scenario. But it is not primarily the culture differences or the human aspect - wild and therefore superstitious vs. civilized and educated - of his accounting but of his open mindedness, his willing to look beyond surfaces of people unlike himself and search for the soul within; the search for fact and truth what ever it was, where ever it was, and whomever it belonged to. He held a genuine interest in his undertaking and his virtual pen was faithful in that regard. His eye for beauty and appreciation of the boundless and magnificent wilderness excursion fills the reader with longing to have experienced such as this themselves, even though most of us know it takes a separate breed of individual to breach the hardship inherent in such a journey. And, as one who has grown up in the West, it is easy to spot a counterfeit.
   
   Truly a masterpiece of Western Americana, taking it's rightful place alongside Mari Sandoz/s "Old Jules".
   
   I highly recommend this two-volume historical book to anyone who is interested in factual narrative adventure, Indian Nations as they were or first-person American History, especially during the Westward movement.
   
   For those whose tastes run to this kind of historical narrative, another Library of America selection, William Bartram's "Travels and other writings" is in a similar vein, a fabulous accounting of the eastern half of the U.S., when it too was young, and includes fascinating narrative regarding the Cherokees, Crees, Creeks, and other Native Nations. Allan Eckert's "The Frontiersmen" is another excellent example of historical narration regarding the pioneers and woodsmen.

5 comments about Betrayals: Fort William Henry and the Massacre.

1. Although this was a good book in itself, it covered too much of the French and Indian War to just have a title of Fort William Henry and the "Massacre". The book was interesting up to the point of the siege and massacre then it became very vague. It lacked details to the point of disappointment. It did not say what specific Indian tribes did most of the massacre, nor did it have a thorough account of actually what was happening! It told about some injured being killed in the fort , then it jumped to militia killed on the road to Ft Edward, then to the English officers dining with the French officers and chasing away Indians from their personal effects. In addition the author downplayed the massacre! Every time the word was used it was in quotation marks,making it seem the massacre was overplayed. But if 10 people are massacred instead of 200 does that make a difference? The book did inform the reader about the Canadien slave trade which was going on between them and some tribes, which other books clearly never bring up. Many English suffered because of it. It also made it clear that because of the French's terms at Ft. William Henry, many Indians then refused to help the French in the future. Sealing their fate in the French and Indian War.



2. The title of this perceptive book tells the gist of Professor Steele's investigation into the seige and subsequent murder or kidnapping of prisoners after the British garrison surrendered to Montcalm in 1757. In essence, the English prisoners were betrayed by the French by letting their Indian allies seek scalps, prisoners and plunder after being given parole to march to a British force on the Hudson. On a larger scale, the French betrayed the Indians by not allowing them to take what Indians assumed were rightfully theirs as a part of 18th century warfare: prisoners to replace tribal members killed in combat, plunder of European materials, and scalps. Steele asserts that the losses suffered by the British garrison were smaller than previously claimed (including a number of men who were forced to travel home with Indians from the Great Lakes)and that the incident was not the bloodbath of popular legend. The men taken to the Lakes kept turning up for years afterward. Many of the scalps taken were from the corpses in the fort's cemetery-the Indians who took these scalps therefore brought smallpox back home with them and might have inadvertently destroyed whole tribes. Steele tries to count the men killed during the "massacre" and I think he is successful in his enumeration. He does not overlook the wounded who were murdered in their beds, the man boiled and eaten by his captors, and the soldiers knocked out of line and killed because they resisted being plundered. I agree that Montcalm was not complicit in directing the massacre, but set up the conditions that caused it to happen.

   The Massacre lives on in popular imagination, but so does the Boston Massacre, certainly one of the most non-massacres in American history.

   On a personal note, my 7th generation great-grandfather Bernardus Bratt commanded the New York troops at Fort William Henry in the summer of 1756 and came out as a company commander in Sir William Johnson's regiment after the 1757 massacre.

   Well-written and well-documented modern accounts of the French and Indian War are few and far between. Steele's book should remain the final word for some time to come.




3. Despite the Liberal revisionist description of this book I found it to be an honest scholarly investigation into this event in history which has become one of the darker legends of colonial American history. Clearly not the work of some Amerindian apologist bent on denying or trivializing what happened, this book tries to provide the reader with an honest and unbiased source of what happened. Provides a good source of background on the war and the treatment of captives, including the French Colonial slave trade of American captives. The author makes a sincere effort to determine what actually happened.
   
   A good book for those interested in this period.



4. Accounts of the siege and fall of Fort William Henry (3-9 August 1757) vary dramatically depending on the source (or movie), but all agree English/Colonial forces were attacked a day after their surrender to Montcalm with the `honors of war.' The causes, responsibility, and number of victims have been widely disputed ever since.
   
   This work convincingly reconstructs the actual event from sources drawn from colonial to modern times (all presented). It describes the frontier (from Kalm's 1749 travels), the struggle for dominion, the combatants, and the victims' fate (with a tabulation of killed and missing). It is a lucid, balanced account that sets the record straight and raises larger questions.
   
   Each party was betrayed: English/Colonials by the attack, each other, and the absence of Iroquois allies; the French by unreliable native allies (especially those from the pays d'en haut) and Canadians; Canadians by French neophytes in North American warfare; and the perpetrators (Indians allies of the French) by European terms that foreclosed their expectations. It was an event that exposed radically disjointed cultures.
   
   One of the Indian perpetrators best explained himself to Sulpician Abbé François Picquet in Montréal en route west after refusing Governor Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil de Cavagnail's attempts to redeem his captive:
   
   "I make war for plunder, scalps, and prisoners. You are satisfied with a fort, and you let your enemy and mine live. I do not want to keep such bad meat for tomorrow. When I kill it, it can no longer attack me." The native world had no conception of the `honors of war' or chivalry (save silent days of torture of a captive before inevitable death).
   
   A few minor items missing in the text/footnotes:
   -The Ohio Land Company (formed by George Washington's elder brother Lawrence, Lt-Gov Dinwidde, and others, employing George Washington as a surveyor) which stood to directly profit from the acquisition of western Pennsylvania - claimed by France;
   -The `assassination' of Joseph Coulon de Villiers de Jumonville and ten other Frenchmen after they surrendered to George Washington by Tanaghrisson and his Mingo tribesmen 28 May 1754 at Jumonville's Glen PA (a formative event for war, similarly disputed in subsequent accounts);
   -Louis Coulon de Villiers's (Jumonville's elder brother) victory at Fort Necessity 3 July 1754 is mentioned, but without any acknowledgment of Villiers's award of `honors of war' to George Washington and Washington's immediate renunciation of them on regaining safety in Virginia (he returned with Braddock the following year and narrowly escaped death at Monongahela 9 July 1755);
   -The Battle of Carillon 8 July 1758, Montcalm's last victory, in which (deserted by most native allies) his force of 4,200 defeated Maj-General James Abercromby's 17,600 man (including 400 Mohawks) attack.
   
   Those points aside (they have more to do with context rather than content), this is an excellent work that is highly recommended.



5. Much of this book concerns the French and Indian War in general and not just the "massacre." In fact, I don't see why the title claims it is specifically about "Fort William Henry and the Massacre."
   
   This is an okay book, but I have read better ones. I wouldn't feel less informed, really, if I had never read it. Decent writing but somewhat dry. Not a page turner, but just okay to read. Disappointing in that it didn't really cover the subject well (in my opinion).

3 comments about Plymouth Colony: Its History and People.

1. In doing research on my own ancestor who was a passanger on the Mayflower and one of the original Pilgrims, I have used over 50 books. This one is by far the best. Very readable, this book provides an excellent narative of many of the events of the first 70 years at Plymouth, and detailed descriptions of many of the Pilgrims. For anyone interested in this era, this book is a must.



2. There are hundreds of books out there about the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving and all that goes with the subject. But the majority of these books are written either in a stodgy, encyclopedic (read: Boring!) format, or they are written for children. Well, now I have one that is actually written for adults, as well as in an easy to read manner. Written mainly from a genealogical stance, the author, Eugene Aubrey Stratton, did his "putting flesh on the bones" research; that is, he sought out how the pilgrims lived their daily lives in all aspects of their time and place. Instead of the cartoonish figures we all see come November, Mr. Stratton actually gives an authentic look to these early Americans. He makes the reader feel that they now know the pilgrims, not only through their historical prominence in our early history, but by name, and we feel their hardships, especially of their first winter here. After the first time reading this book, I re-read it, only this time I read the 'Biographical Sketches' section, located toward the back of the book, first, THEN I went to the beginning. My advice to the first time reader is to do the same. You will then know who you are reading about as names are mentioned.
   This book is, simply put, the best of its kind. Maybe more genealogists should write our history books! At least they bring history to life!



3. My husband & I are both descended from The Mayflower - He from William Brewster & Stephen Hopkins and I from William Bradford. This book has added so much information for our Genealogy. I cannot tell you how many times I have used it to add information to our family history file. It has many years of use.

5 comments about Chasing The Frontier: Scots-Irish in Early America.

1. Larry Hoefling leads the reader through the migration of the Scots-Irish from the Scotland lowlands, to Ireland, and then on to America. He provides excerpts from the lives of different Scots-Irish surnames of these early pioneers in America which is invaluable for the genealogist with Scots-Irish ancestry. Mr. Hoefling as been able to merge the history of these people's migration to America, along with a personal look at wills, death records, marriage records, military rosters, and land deeds of these early pioneers. Anyone with Scots-Irish ancestry would find this book an invaluable addition to their collection, and may even find the name of one of their ancestors included in the book.



2. As someone who tries to read every book published on the subject, I was quick to buy this book, and quick to read it, but it proved a major disappointment.
   
   I was expecting a comprehensive treatment of the subject based on the title, but that's not what this is; instead, it is a dreary recitation of the author's family history, limited chronologically and geographically to the author's area of interest. If your area of interest happens to include the Huston family, or the Shenandoah Valley, or early Kentucky, it MIGHT be of interest to you, but it's doubly damned by a schizophrenic narrative style and a serious lack of connection to earlier, better works on the subject.
   
   If you've done any genealogical research, you have doubtless endured long tomes full of names and dates, strung together by a valiant effort to create an interesting historical narrative; that's essentially what this is, and if the surnames and placenames are not relevant to you, it is pure unrewarding drudgery. If they are, you might be interested, but don't expect to be entertained or edified.



3. This is a good overview of the Scots in Colonial America. Particularly good information about the Scots in Ireland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina. I would have liked to read more about South Carolina. Worth the money. A good starter book.



4. This tells the story of the Scots-Irish coming to America and settling the wildest of areas. While there are several other books more in depth, the story includes some very informative sample lists of names. The story follows in depth the Huston/Houston family with side stories of some famous Scots-Irish, and their migration from Philadelphia, through Virginia, down to the Carolinas, Tennessee and back up through the Cumberland Gap to Kentucky. While this path was important, an equally important path, that was left out, was through western Pennsylvania, Ohio and points west in what would later become the free states. While my ancestors took both paths, this still made for interesting reading.



5. Good book may have spent too much time on some families, but outlines the Scots-Irish pretty well.