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Since 1847, hundreds of articles on the English origins of New England families have appeared in the pages of The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. A large proportion of this material was published under the aegis of the New England Historic Genealogical Society's Committee on English and Foreign Research, originally led by Josiah Gardner Bartlett and Elizabeth French. Since 1918, and until his death half a century later, the committee was dominated by George Andrews Moriarty, Jr., who generally ruled Anglo-American antiquarian studies.

This present work is a consolidation of all the articles published by the Committee and in particular by Moriarty himself. Treating the immigrant origins of perhaps 1,000 or more families, 200 or so in the most thoroughly documented monographs ever published, the articles contributed to the Register through the Committee on English and Foreign Research are now among the most sought after of the many thousands of Register articles. For the fact is that almost all living Americans with colonial Yankee forebears descend from several of the 1,000 immigrants and from one or more of the monographs of 200 immigrants, treated here. The first series of English origin articles, then, comprises all the Committee's work and is published here in much the same sequence in which it originally appeared. It is accompanied by a masterly essay by Gary Boyd Roberts, the Society's Senior Research Scholar, who notes: "The first series of English Origins of New England Families contains some of the most buried items in the Register....Collecting these monographs, indexing these clues, and highlighting much of Moriarty's best work, [it] should also cover some pre-American ancestry of almost everyone with New England forebears."

Following is a listing, by volume and article, of the principal families covered in this exemplary publication:

Volume I: Chickering; Holmes; Hett and Aldus; Hollard, Elsey, Archer, and Warren; Gibson, Sale, Gifford, and Bradstreet; Iggleden; French, Hinckley, and Paine; Hinckley, Sealis, and Tilden; Bates, Bigge, Hyland, and Stedman; Rayner, Parmenter, Sanders, Waterbury, Ray, Mixer, and Poulter; Rolfe, Whittier, and Pike; Beale, Northend, Veasie, Meede-Lewis, and House; Besbeech, Edenden, and Huckstep; Austen, Bassock, Johnson, and Porredge; Hathorne, Holman, Howse, Pomeroy, and Sewell; Ivory and Littlefield; Pomeroy, Babbage, Triggs, Branch, Cade, Holland alias Silke, Norman, Rogers, and Whitcomb; Cushman, Hinckley, Soole-Iddenden-Hosmer-Mercer, and Quilter; Parmenter; Rowning; Maverick; Eyre/Aires, Payne, Page, Clarke, and Sale; Leager, Greene, Ewer, and Greenleaf; Pomeroy and Chatfield; Hatch; Stowe, Edenden, and Sealis; Josselyn; Patch and Gifford-Master; Makernes; Freestone, Raithbeck, and Thew; Patteshall; Bowditch; Coggeshall; Clarke; Gifford-Sargent; Fowle and Borden; Clarke-Cook (alias Carewe)-Kerrich; Jenkin; Hale-Dowsett; Weeden; Perkins; Tucker-Darrell; Gridley; Butler and De Grey; and miscellaneous families.

Volume II: Haskett, Sheffield, Bordman, Derby, Dunster, Metcalf, Moody, Symonds-Femell, Mohun (or Moone)-Hyde, Leachland, Jones, Garde, Gorton, Goodspeed, Morse, Jasper, Borden, Stibbs, Lothrop, Tallman, Sealy, Abbot, Chandler, Belknap, Cowes, Scruggs, Stevens, Burt-March, Martin, Fiske, Pynchon, Daniel-Morse, Collins, Peck, Gurdon, Earl, Putenham, Giffard, Chamber and Hathorne, Hastings, Strickland, Bayford, Roger Williams, Woodman, and Blennerhasset.

Volume III: Coggeshall, Moseley, Page, Throckmorton and Hastings, Puttenham, Palgrave, Mohun, Brandon, Wingfield, Ray-Gilbert-Bigg-Rowning, Wetherill-Watson, De Douvres or De Chilham, Aspinwall, Giffard, Hammond, Weeden, Carleton-Wilson, Nevill, Baliol, Abbott-Elliot, Hathorne, Le Mahieu, Gallop-Maverick, Gervase D'Eyncourt, Eliot and De Baliol, Bass and Savil, Weedon, Putnam, Holyman, Felbrigge or Philbrick, Tyrrell, Vassall, Woodhouse, Cornwallis, Fuller, Master, Newton-Carleton, Wilbore, Bernard, Baldwin, Strickland, Thorpe, Lord, Gye-Maverick, Mortimer, Harcourt, Portyngton, King Henry I [fitzHenry], Mortimer, Strangway, Shepherd, Putnam, Crosby, Watson, Sotheron and Millington, Mowbray, and miscellaneous families.

These volumes are also available on our Family Archive CD 7181.