The Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants to the American Colonies or the United States Who Were Themselves Notable or Left Descendants Notable in American History

Once again Gary Boyd Roberts has assembled all recent royal descent research, some yet unpublished, and produced an authoritative, up-to-date compendium. In the 2006 edition of The Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants he added eighteen new immigrants to his previous 650. In this edition, he has added twenty-eight more, so that with a few disproofs (Curwens/Corwins of Massachusetts and New York, Byes of Pennsylvania, and Edwardses, one Evans and Hugh Jones of Pennsylvania), this total is now 688.

New immigrants treated in the 2008 edition include Mrs. Jane Greene Poole (wife of the earlier treated William) and Mrs. Margaret Estouteville Shepard (ancestor of the two presidents Adams and FDR), both of Massachusetts; Mrs. Audrey Barlow Almy of Rhode Island (ancestor of presidents Harding, Nixon, and Carter); Mrs. Henrietta Constantia Worsam Meade and Charles Willing of Pennsylvania; and various Virginia immigrants, many developed by GPC author John Anderson Brayton. New Virginians include Mrs. Elizabeth Wood Barcroft, an ancestor of Jimmy Carter; John Baskerville; Benjamin Harrison, immigrant ancestor of the two presidents Harrison; Mrs. Dorothy Walker Jones; Philip Ludwell, ancestor of the Stratford Lees and the first husband of Martha Washington; and Stephens Thompson, ancestor of the Masons of Gunston Hall.

Mr. Roberts is especially pleased to include two new North Carolinians John Alston (a third cousin of John Alston of South Carolina) and Mrs. Ann Coddington Fenner, an ancestor of Senator John McCain.

Also included, in Appendix VIII to the Introduction, are new descriptions of recently revised, likely but unproved, royal descents for the five Winslow brothers, John Whitney, and John Whitcomb, all of Massachusetts.

With this enlarged compendium, plus the works of Douglas Richardson on Magna Carta and Plantagenet ancestry, which add much biographical detail on many medieval figures and cover over 200 of the 688 immigrants, royal descent literature has reached a new level of comprehension and reliability. Genealogical Publishing Company is proud to offer the public these benchmark works that lead to an almost 800- year expansion (ca. 900 1700) of the ancestry of many thousands of Americans.