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Some two million Huguenots, or French Protestants, fled France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685--an edict which had originally protected them from persecution at the hands of the Catholic Church. Dispersing first to the Netherlands, then to England, Ireland, and even South Africa, then to America and Canada, thousands of these French Protestants became the founders or early settlers of such places as Oxford, Massachusetts, Narragansett in Rhode Island, New Amsterdam, New Rochelle, and New Paltz in New York, the Santee River and the Orange Quarter in South Carolina, Manakin-Town in Virginia, and a host of other sites in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and South Carolina--in many cases establishing permanent settlements long before the arrival of the first English colonists.

This Family Archive CD contains electronically searchable text of the pages of sixteen Huguenot reference works published by the Genealogical Publishing Company. Together these books comprise the most notable collection of Huguenot reference materials in the English language. In general, they provide accounts of the origins of the Huguenots in France, their persecution and subsequent flight from the European mainland, and their dispersal throughout Great Britain and America. Key sections of the books are devoted to histories of Huguenot settlements and churches and to studies of the Huguenot influence on American life before the Revolutionary War. But the most significant portions of the books are reserved for accounts of Huguenot immigrants and their families, some taking the form of pedigrees, genealogies, and lengthy family histories, others appearing as lists of baptisms, marriages, and deaths.

In both narratives and records, there is a profusion of genealogical detail, which is here presented in a convenient, easy-to-use CD, complete with an electronic name index, at a fraction of the cost of the books! Listed below are the sixteen books included on this CD:

1. History of the Huguenot Emigration to America, by Charles W. Baird

2. Huguenot Emigration to Virginia and to the Settlement at Manakin-Town, by Robert Brock

3. The Annals and Parish Register of St. Thomas and St. Denis Parish, in South Carolina, from 1680 to 1884, by Robert F. Clute

4. The French Blood in America, by Lucien Fosdick

5. The Huguenots of Colonial South Carolina, by Arthur Henry Hirsch

6. The Huguenots or Early French in New Jersey, by Albert F. Koehler

7. Huguenot Pedigrees, by Charles Edmund Lart

8. Family Names of Huguenot Refugees to America, by Mrs. James Lawton

9. The Huguenot Settlements in Ireland, by Grace Lawless Lee

10. The Huguenots in France and America, by Hannah F. Lee

11. History of New Paltz, New York, and its Old Families, by Ralph LeFevre

12. Memoir Concerning the French Settlements and French Settlers in the Colony of Rhode Island, by Elisha R. Potter

13. List of French and Swiss Who Settled in Charleston, on the Santee, and at the Orange Quarter in Carolina, by Daniel Ravenel

14. The Trail of the Huguenots, by George Elmore Reaman

15. The Huguenots: Their Settlements, Churches, and Industries in England and Ireland, by Samuel Smiles

16. Memorials of Huguenots in America, by Ammon Stapleton

System Requirements: You must have a CD-ROM drive, and in order to read the CD you must use either the Family Archive Viewer (version 4.0 or higher), which is available as a free download at http://www.genealogical.com/content/dlfav6.html, or Family Tree Maker for Windows, version 4.0 or higher (Family Tree Maker software can be ordered from www.FamilyTreeMaker.com).

To access information on our Family Archive CDs using the Family Archive Viewer:

1. Install the Family Archive Viewer CD or download it from http://www.genealogy.com/dlfav6.html.
2. Start the Viewer if it is not already running
3. Insert the CD you wish to view into the CD-ROM drive. If you have 2 or more CD-ROM drives, the CD must be placed in the first one.
4. The CD should open automatically, but users of later versions of the Family Archive Viewer must click the CD/magnifying glass icon in the top toolbar (above the template in some versions) to read the CD.
5. When the screen entitled "About this Family Archive" appears, click OK where prompted.

To access information on our Family Archive CDs using Family Tree Maker:

1. Start your Family Tree Maker and open a Family File. (If the program is already running, skip to Step 2.)
2. Insert the CD in your computer's CD-ROM drive. (If you have 2 or more CD-ROM drives, the CD must be placed in the first one.)
3. From the View menu, select Family Finder, or select the Family Finder icon from the toolbar.
4. For FTM 2005, FTM 2006, or Version 16, you must go to the View menu, select Data CD, then View CD. For FTM 2008 or higher, you must download the Family Archive Viewer.

To search the CD for names, select the Search Expert button in the top right of your screen, then select "Search this archive for someone NOT from your Family File." You can also search for names by using the Index.

Note: If a window opens that contains a list of files on the CD, simply close it.