Do you have ancestors who migrated to New England between 1621 and 1640 during the Puritan Great Migration (PGM)? Do you know where to research?
Did you find your ancestors in the Great Migration Directory? Does the source entry say something like [GMB 848-49] or [GM2:3:202-3] or [PM 231-32]. If so research becomes pretty easy.
These three items refer to well researched books by Robert Charles Anderson
- [GMB] The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620–1633 (3-volumes)
- [GM] The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England 1634–1635: 7 volumes
- * [PM] The Pilgrim Migration: Immigrants to Plymouth Colony, 1620–1633
Each known immigrant profiled has a sketch of a few paragraphs to several pages long. The sketch covers the immigrants birth, marriage, death, origins, immigration, offices held, estate (the land he owned), children and other information. Statements are backed up by sources placed in brackets eg. [MBCR 1:218, 241]; [Waters 461-62]; [NEHGR 67:342]. Of course there is a key to these abbreviations in the book and Wikitree has an up-scaled version complete with links to online copies.
These books are the basic go to source used by the Puritan Great Migration Project.
The Anderson books seem to be readily available in college and university libraries. Check Workldcat. They can also be found online at Ancestry and American Ancestors.
Here’s an example of a PGM Profile developed (not copy/pasted- developed) from the Great Migration sketch.
Savory-279 It still has Anderson’s abbreviations intact, but sometime someone will take the time to look up the primary records named in the abbreviations.
