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US Southern Colonies Project | Reliable Sources | Sources and Resources Directory

This Page has General/Multi-Colony Sources. For Colony Specific Sources, please click on one of the Colony Links above.

This is the Reliable Sources page for the US Southern Colonies Project, which includes profiles covered by pre-1700 project requirements.

This page contains sources focused on the period 1600-1776 recommended (or warned against) by WikiTree's US Southern Colonies Project.

Note: for resources pertaining to learning about the history of the US Southern Colonies, see: US Southern Colonies History.

Note: for creating a citation from a website that has not been provided see citing websites. Add the link from the page that you are sourcing.

• After finding a reliable source, care must be taken to establish that the source belongs to your profile.

Some pages are under development. See also

• Jamestown: Jamestown, Virginia Colony, Genealogy Resources
• Carolinas: Province of Carolina History, Research Resources

Colony Neutral / Multiple Colonies

Sources here are colony-neutral or cover multiple colonies. Reminder: books, databases, compilations, and websites are only as reliable as the sources they cite. They are an extra resources in addition to the Colony Specific Reliable Sources pages.

Reliable Sources

Peer Reviewed Journals

Articles in the following journals are peer-reviewed, typically authored by experienced researchers, and well-cited.

• Blassingame, John W. “American Nationalism and Other Loyalities in the Southern Colonies 1763-1775.” The Journal of Southern History, vol. 34, no. 1, 1968, pp. 50–75. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2205474. Accessed 19 June 2021.

• Journal of the American Revolution. Life in the Southern Colonies: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. move to Resources Page?

Vital Records

Births

See Individual Colonies

Marriages

See Individual Colonies

Deaths

See Individual Colonies

Land Records

See Individual Colonies

Probate Records

See Individual Colonies

Tax Records

See Individual Colonies

Other Records

Final Payment Vouchers for Those who fought in the American Revolution. ($)

US National Archives provides access to thousands of Case Files of Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Applications Based on Revolutionary War Service https://catalog.archives.gov/search?q=revolutionary%20war%20pensions&f.oldScope=online&rows=100

Cokayne

Cokayne's Complete Peerage, 2nd edition, is a reliable source for information about the ancestors of colonial immigrants, although it may not be as useful for the immigrants and their descendants. See the links to online copies provided at

• Joe Cochoit's Complete Peerage page
• this page on Familysearch

Additional details about The Complete Peerage can be found on the Pre-1500 Resource Page (here).

Reliable Sources with conditions

Sources here are colony-neutral or cover multiple colonies. Reminder: books, databases, compilations, and websites are only as reliable as the sources they cite.

Biographical Compilations

• Brown, Alexander, The First Republic in America, (1898), 21-40; digital images, Hathi Trust (accessed 2021).

• Robert E. Brown, The Birth of a Nation: A Portrait of the American People on the Eve of Independence. By Arthur M. Schlesinger. With an introduction by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1968. Pp. viii, 258, xi. $7.95.), The American Historical Review, Volume 74, Issue 4, April 1969, Pages 1357–1359, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/74.4.1357

• Child, Christopher Challender., Otto, Julie Helen. Ancestors of American Presidents. United States: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2009.

• Coldham, Peter Wilson, The Complete Book of Emigrants 1607-1660, more details needed

• Crozier, William Armstrong, A Key to Southern Pedigrees, being a comprehensive guide to the colonial ancestry of families in the States of Virginia, Maryland, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia and Alabama; Baltimore: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1953.

• Gandy, Wallace, editor, The Association oath rolls of the British plantations, London: Private Printing (1922).

• Mackenzie, George Norbury, Colonial Families of the United States of America, in which is given the history, genealogy and armorial bearings of colonial families who settled in the American colonies from the time of the settlement of Jamestown, 13th May, 1607, to the battle of Lexington, 19th April, 1775
• Mackenzie, George Norbury, Colonial families of the United States of America..., Vol 6. Baltimore, MD: The Seaforth Press, Genealogical Publishers, 1907 (MCMXVH).
• MacKenzie, George Norbury, Colonial Families of the United States of America, Vol 7. New York, The Grafton Press, 1907.

• Marshall, Michael R., Early Colonial Settlers of Southern Maryland and Virginia's Northern Neck Counties (web site) link

• Richardson, Douglas, Magna Carta Ancestry (2011). Richardson's Magna Carta Ancetry documents connections between the immigrant (Gateway Ancestor) and a Surety Baron. Richardson does not document descendants of the immigrant, although the Gateway's entry may include children and their spouses (in which case, you'll want to explore and access the sources listed following the Gateway's entry).

Surname / Family-Specific Compilations

• Buckner, Bernard, A Blakey book : being an account of those believed to be descended from Thomas and Susannah Blakey of Christ Church parish, Middlesex County, Virginia, Repository, Provo, UT Generations Network, Inc., 2004.
• Ladd, Ruth Kline, One Ladd's family: revisited, Hudson, WI: RK Ladd 2002.

Emigration / Passenger Lists

This section covers emigration from 1600 to 1776. Passenger lists are generally considered reliable, but the names in compiled lists may or may not reflect a woman's name at the time of her passage (e.g., the 1624/5 Jamestown Muster includes the ship that a settler arrived on but her name at the time of the muster). Information about specific ships can be found on ship category pages (or their companion space pages). Two WikiTree categories are particularly useful:

Southern Colony Ships excluding Jamestown

Chesapeake Colony Ships Jamestown

Jamestown Colony Ships Jamestown

See also the Ship Index on the Space: Jamestown Colony Index.

• Hotten, John Camden, [https://archive.org/details/originallistsofp00hottuoft The Original Lists of Persons of Quality]... 1600-1700; London, 1874. link; See also extracted names at PackRat Pro.

• Lancour, Harold, 1908-; Wolfe, Richard J, compiler, A bibliography of ship passenger lists, 1538-1825; being a guide to published lists of early immigrants to North America, third edition. New York: The New York Public Library (1963).

• Stevens, Anne, compiler, Pilgrim Ship Lists, Packrat-Pro.

Unreliable Sources

This page and the colony-specific reliable sources pages focus on sources "this side of the pond" - post-immigration. Other WikiTree projects' reliable sources pages - such as the Magna Carta Project (Magna Carta Project Reliable Sources) and the European Aristicrats Project (European Aristocrats Project Reliable Sources) - should be consulted when looking for colonists' ancestors. Three sources frequently used to support a connection between colonists and the aristocracy are not considered reliable by those projects, and should be considered unreliable for colonists' profiles:

• Burke reference works: Avoid all Burke reference works (including Burke's Peerage, Burke's Dormant and Extinct Peerages, and Burke's Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies). They have many errors. 19th century editions are especially unreliable. Cokayne's Complete Peerage covers some of the same ground (see Cokayne, above).
• Lewis's Database: Marlyn Lewis's "Our Royal Titled Noble and Commoner Ancestors" (ORTNCA) is mostly based on Douglas Richardson's work, which is considered reliable "with conditions" (see Richardson under Biographical Compilations, above), but care must be taken even when it appears that Richardson is the source of information in the database (Lewis includes citations at the end of a phrase or sentence, and sometimes the person's name is the only information given by Richardson).
• Lundy Database: Darryl Lundy's database (thepeerage.com) is largely based on Burke's work. While it can be helpful in identifying possible relationships and lines of inquiry, its use as a source in its own right should be avoided as far as possible.

Examples of Sources that Provide Uncertain Information

Colony Neutral / Multiple Colonies

The following sources should not be cited and are subject to removal from project-managed profiles if found. If these are the only sources on a profile, please replace it with something better prior to removal.

• Yates' US and International Marriages Index. See this discussion for why.
• Millennium File: "created by the Institute of Family Research to track the records of its clients and the results of its professional research. It contains more than 880,000 linked family records, with lineages from throughout the world, including colonial America, the British Isles, Switzerland, and Germany. Many of these lineages extend back to nobility and renowned historical figures. In fact, one of the things the Millennium File focuses on is linking to European nobility and royalty."
• Edmund West Family Data collections, per their own description, "should be used to find primary sources."
• UNSOURCED user-contributed family trees, including (but not limited to):
  • Pedigree Resource Files on familysearch.org
  • Public or any other family trees from Ancestry.com
  • Geni.com - World Family Tree - RootsWeb / If the tree cites reliable proofs, find the proofs and cite them instead.
  • A personal family tree.
  • Find-A-Grave. Find-A-Grave profiles rarely cite reliable proofs. When they do, find the proofs and cite them.
  • Transcriptions of documents (wills, etc.) found online that are not published.
  • A discussion in a genealogy forum. If the discussion cites reliable proofs, find the proofs and cite them.
  • Books with family trees/family histories that do not cite reliable sources. These books are secondary sources and should be seen as a starting point. Further research is needed to confirm those relationships.

Additionally, it was very popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s to publish family genealogies. These are much like the online trees of today-- their quality varies depending on the extent to which they cite their sources. Some contain accurate information-- especially about the people living within the last 50 years prior to the publication date; but many have been subsequently proven to be incomplete, inaccurate, or in a few rare cases, downright fraudulent. Absent better sources, these old published genealogies can be cited or included under "See also:". A goal of the project, however, is to find more original documentation, closer to the time of the event being cited.

• Find-a-Grave is a user-contributed site, and as such is generally excluded from the list of reliable sources. Please do not make changes to a profile's vitals, including identification of relations, based solely on information transcribed on a Find-a-Grave profile. The exception is that if the Find-a-Grave profile contains a photo of a contemporaneous gravestone (i.e., a gravestone created and placed at the time of the person's death) and includes information about the person's death, you can cite the Find-a-Grave profile for the death information, and for other information that appears on the gravestone. Please understand, though, that even gravestones may contain erroneous information.
• Lineage Society Applications. Lineage societies such as Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), Society for Colonials Wars, and others, vary with regard to the proofs that they require for membership. And some, like DAR, have changed their rules over time. Therefore, such applications should be used more as finding aids than actual sources. When looking at a lineage society application, please check what sources they cite, and then seek to find those actual sources.
• Links to sources on paid subscription sites such as Ancestry, FindMyPast, and MyHeritage can be frustrating for WikiTree members and visitors without access to these sites. We recommend searching for a freely available copy of the source document on sites such as FamilySearch, Google Books, USGenWeb, Archive.org, or HathiTrust.

If the source record is only available to paid subscribers, when providing the URL please also extract as much information as possible, such as relevant names, dates, and the source of the original data.

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ALL data that was originally on this page has been permanently moved to a Colony Page. Craig-4574 13:19, 19 June 2021 (UTC)