RESEARCH
MATERIALS

Select a Category by choosing a box below:

Jamestown & Early Virginia
Early New England
New Netherland
Revolutionary War
Civil War Era
American West

JAMESTOWN & EARLY VIRGINIA

  • Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and London’s Overseas Traders, Robert Brenner, 1550-1653 (1993)

  • Marooned: Jamestown, Shipwreck, and a New History of America’s Origin, Joseph Kelly (2018)

  • The First Seventeen Years: Virginia, Charles E. Hatch, 1607-1624 (1957)

  • Cavaliers and Pioneers: Abstracts of Virginia Land Patents and Grants, Neil Marion Nugent, 1623-1800 (1934)
  • Jamestown, The First English Colony, Marshall W. Fishwick (1965)

  • The Cradle of the Republic: Jamestown and James River, Lyon Gardiner Tyler (1906)

  • The Virginia Company of London, Wesley Frank Craven, 1606-1624 (1957)

  • Colonial Record of Virginia, Various, (1964)

  • The Planters of Colonial Virginia, Thomas J. Wertenbaker (1959)
  • 1619: Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy, James Horn (2018)

  • The History of Virginia in Four Parts, Robert Beverley, (1722)

  • Gleanings of Virginia History, William Fletcher Boogher (1908)

  • Some Emigrants to Virginia, W.G. Stanard (1911)

Bacon’s Rebellion: America’s First Revolution

  • Bacon’s Rebellion, Thomas J. Wertenbaker, 1676 (1957)

  • The Governor and the Rebel, Wilcomb E. Washburn (1957)

  • The History of Virginia, in Four Parts (Book I, chapter IV), Robert Beverley (1722, reprinted 1855) 
  • Jamestown (2014) (chap. 6, “Mutiny and Rebellion”), Marshall W. Fishwick (2014)

  • The Colonies in Transition, Wesley Frank Craven

  • Volumes I-III Adventurers of Purse and Person in Virginia, John Frederick Dorman Traces the lines of many early Virginia settlers through six generations.
  • The Story of Bacon’s Rebellion (including Appendix of contemporaneous writings), Mary Newton Stanard (1907)

  • Tales From A Revolution: Bacon’s Rebellion and the Transformation of Early America, James Rice

  • Bacon’s Rebellion: The Contemporary News Sheets, Harry Finestone (1956)

Evidence of Jamestown Island Residence can be found in:

  • Cavaliers and Pioneers, Abstracts of Virginia Land Patents and Grants, 1623-1666

  • Service for Jamestowne Colony is found in The General Assembly of Virginia 1619-1978, Cynthia Leonard

  • Signers of the Charters are found in The Three Charters of the Virginia Company of London, Samuel Bemiss

  • Cavaliers and Pioneers Volume II 1666- 1695, Nell M. Nugent
  • Colonial Virginia Register, William and Mary Stanard

  • A list of Anglican Ministers is found in Empire, Religion and Revolution in Early Virginia, 1607-1786 by James Bell and The Colonial Clergy of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina by Frederick Lewis Weis

  • Documentary History of Jamestowne Island Vol. III: Biographies of Owners and Residents, Martha W. McCartney
  • A list of Stockholders in the Virginia Company of London Is found in The Records of the Virginia Company of London, vol. III, Susan Kinsbury

  • The Lists of the Living and Dead in Virginia 1623 is found in The Original Lists of Persons of Quality: Emigrants, Religious Exiles, Political Rebels, Serving Men Sold for a Term of Years, Apprentices, Children Stolen, Maidens Pressed, and Others, who Went from Great Britain to the American Plantations, 1600- 1700 by John Camden Hotten

Additional lists of Jamestown settlers can be found in:

  • Virginia Immigrants and Adventurers 1607-1635, Martha W. McCartney.
  • Cavaliers and Pioneers Volume II 1666- 1695, Nell M. Nugent
  • The Complete Book of Emigrants 1607-1660

EARLY NEW ENGLAND

Modern Books

  • Strangers and Pilgrims, Travelers and Sojourners: Leiden and the Foundations of Plymouth Plantation, Jeremy Bangs (2009)

  • The Mayflower: The Families, the Voyage, and the Founding of America, Rebecca Fraser (2017)

  • A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony, John Demos, (1970)

  • The Mayflower Migration, Robert Charles Anderson (2020)

  • The Times of Their Lives: Life, Love and Death in Plymouth Colony, James Deetz (2001)
  • The Mayflower and Her Log, Azel Ames (2015)

  • The World of Plymouth Plantation, Carla Gardina Pestana (2020)

  • Plymouth Colony: Its History and People, Eugene Aubrey Stratton 1620-1691 (1986)

  • The Great Migration Newsletter (25 Volumes), Robert Charles Anderso (1990-2016)

  • The English Ancestry and Homes of the Pilgrim Fathers Who Came to Plymouth on the Mayflower in 1620, the Fortune in 1621, and the Anne and the Little James in 1623, Charles Edward Banks (1962)
  • Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War, Nathaniel Philbrick (2006)

  • The Journey to the Mayflower:God’s Outlaws and the Invention of Freedom, Stephen Tomkins (2020)

  • The Pilgrim Migration: Immigrants to Plymouth Colony 1620-1633, Robert Charles Anderson (2004)

  • Pilgrim Edwrd Winslow: New England’s First International Diplomat, Jeremy Bangs (2004)

NEW NETHERLAND

Modern WRITINGS

  • The Island at The Center of the New World, Russell Shorto (2004)

  • The Dutch Moment: War, Trade and Settlement in the Seventeenth-Century Atlantic World, Wim Klooster

  • New Netherlands: Dutch Colonial New York, James Kent (2015)

  • The Story of New Netherland, William Elliot Griffic (1909)
  • The Colony of New Netherland: A Dutch Settlement in Seventeenth-Century America, Jaap Jacobs, (2009)

  • Dutch New York: The Roots of the Hudson Valley Culture, Roger Panetta, editor (2013)

  • New Amsterdam: The History of the Dutch Settlement Before It Became New York City, Charles River Editors (2015)

  • The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498 – 1909 (six volumes, published 1915 – 1928), Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes
  • Explorers, Fortunes and Love Letters: A Window on New Netherland, Martha Dickenson Shattuck, editor, (2009, published by the New Netherland Institute)

  • History of Ancient Families of New Amsterdam and New York, Edward R. Purple, (1881, republished by the New England Historic Genealogical Society (2013)

  • Narratives of New Netherland, J. Franklin Jameson, editor, 1604-1664 (1909)

Contemporary Writings

  • A Journey Into Mohawk and Oneida Country, 1634 – 1635 (translated and edited by Charles T. Gehring and William A Starna, Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert (2013)
  • A Description of the New World, Adriaen van der Donck (1655)
  • Various Correspondence, 1654 – 1658 (translated and edited by Charles T. Gehring)

Genealogical Research Resources Concerning Potential New Netherland and Early New York Ancestors

  • See generally “New York Family History Resources, 2019 Catalog” (published by the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society [NYGB])

  • NYGB Webinars (ongoing)

  • New York State Library

  • New York Genealogy (newyorkgenealogy.org)

  • Baptisms in the Reformed Dutch Church (via NYGB)

  • Cor Snabel and Elizabeth Johnson, Sketches of Seventeenth-Century Hollanders: Seventeenth-Century Persons Who Lived in Holland and North America (extracts of various 17th Century Dutch records)

  • Inventory of the Archives of the Holland Land Company 1789 – 1869 (Amsterdam: Municipal Printing Office, 1976), Wilhelmina Pieterse
  • New York County Guide Series (NYGB)

  • New York Land Records Indexing Project (see FamilySearch.org, click indexing, and “Find a Project”)

  • New York City Municipal Archives

  • The New York Researcher [and predecessor NYGB Newsletter] (30 volumes: NYGB)

  • Geographical Birth Index for New York City (Internet Archive, archive.org)

  • Lists of Inhabitants of Colonial New York: The Documentary History of the State of New York (1849 – 51; republished 2007), E. B. O’Callaghan

  • The Holland Land Company, Paul Evans, (1924, reprinted 1979)
  • The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record (156 volumes)

  • New York State Archives

  • New York Public Library Digital Collections

  • New York Birth, Marriage & Death Records (via NYGB)

  • New York Historical Transcripts: Old First Dutch Reformed Church of Brooklyn New York: First Book of Records 1600 – 1752, A. P. G. Jos van der Lynde, translator and editor (2015)

  • A List of Early Immigrants to New Netherland, Teunis G. Bergen

  • New York Heritage Digital Collections (cdm16694.content.ocic.org)

Revolutionary War

  • John Adams, David McCullough (2001)

  • His Excellency: George Washington, Joseph J. Ellis (2004)

  • American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, Joseph J. Ellis (1996)

  • The Cause: The American Revolution and Its Discontents, 1773-1783, Joseph J. Ellis (2021)

  • Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence, Joseph J. Ellis (2013)

  • In the Hurricane’s Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown, Nathaniel Philbrick (2018)

  • Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution, Nathaniel Philbrick (2016)

  • Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution Nathaniel Philbrick (2013)

  • Washington’s Immortals: The Untold Story of an Elite Regiment Who Changed the Course of the Revolution, Patrick O’Donnell (2016)

  • The Unknown Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America, Gary B. Nash (2005)

  • Valley Forge, Bob Drury & Tom Clavin (2018)

  • The Compleat Victory: Saratoga and the American Revolution, Kevin Weddle (2021)

  • Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, Walter Isaacson (2003)
  • A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, Stacy Schiff (2005)

  • The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin, W. Brands (2000)

  • Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin, Jill Lepore (2013)

  • A View from Abroad: the Story of John and Abigail Adams in Europe, Jeanne E. Abrams (2021)

  • Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow (2004)

  • The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777, Rick Atkinson (2019)

  • The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780, Rick Atkinson (2025)

  • Founding Partisans: Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, Adams and the Brawling Birth of American Politics, W. Brands (2023)

  • Paul Revere’s Ride, David Hackett Fischer (1994)

  • Paul Revere and the World He Lived In, Esther Forbes (1942)

  • 1774: The Long Year of Revolution, Mary Beth Norton (2020)

  • 1775: A Good Year for Revolution, Kevin Phillips (2012)

  • 1776, David McCullough (2005)
  • 1777: Tipping Point at Saratoga, Dean Snow (2016)

  • The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution, John Oller (2016)

  • Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution, Eric J. Dolin (2022)

  • Captives of Liberty: Prisoners of War and the Politics of Vengeance in the American Revolution, Cole Jones (2020)

  • The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III, Andrew Roberts (2021)

  • The Howe Dynasty: The Untold Story of a Military Family and the Women Behind Great Britain’s Wars for America, Julie Flavell (2021)

  • Revolution Song: A Story of American Freedom, Russell Shorto (2018)

  • Cornwallis: Soldier and Statesman in a Revolutionary World, Richard Middleton (2022)

  • The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and Nation’s Call to Greatness, Harlow Giles Unger (2009)

  • Revolutionary Brothers: Thomas Jefferson, the Marquis de Lafayette, and the Friendship that Helped Forge Two Nations, Tom Chaffin (2019)

  • Rush: Revolution, Madness, & the Visionary Doctor Who Became a Founding Father, Stephen Fried (2018)

  • The Year that Made America, Tom McMillan (2025)

CIVIL WAR ERA

  • The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses S. Grant in War and Peace, H.W. Brands (2012)

  • Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times, David A. Reynolds (2020)

  • Hymns of the Republic: The Story of the Final Year of the American Civil War, S.C. Gwynne (2019)

  • Mary Chestnut’s Civil War Diary, edited by C. Vann Woodward (1981)
  • Differ We Must: How Lincoln Succeeded in a Divided America, Steve Inkster (2023)

  • Robert E. Lee: A Life, Allen C. Guelzo (2021)

  • Searching for Stonewall Jackson: A Quest for Legacy in a Divided Nation, Ben Cleary (2019)

  • Righteous Strife: How Warring Religious Nationalists Forged Lincoln’s Union, Richard Carwardine (2025)
  • Lincoln on War: Our Greatest Commander in Chief Speaks to America, edited by Harold Holzer (2011)

  • American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant, Ronald C. White (2016)

  • The Last Campaign: Sherman, Geronimo, and the War for America, W. Brands (2022)

AMERICAN WEST

  • History of the American Frontier 1763-1893, Frederic Paxson (1924)

  • Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West, Stephen Ambrose (1996)

  • Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America’s First Frontier, Bob Drury and Tom Clavin (2021)

  • The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West, Peter Cozzens (2016)

  • Dreams of El Dorado: A History of the American West, H.W. Brands (2019)
  • The Frontier in American History, Frederick Jackson Turner (1921)

  • American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, Jon Meacham (2008)

  • The Earth Is All That Lasts: Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and the Last Stand of the Great Sioux Nation, Mark Lee Gardner (2022)

  • Astoria: Astor and Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire, Peter Stark, (2015)

  • The Last Outlaws: The Desperate Final Days of The Dalton Gang, Tom Clavin (2023)
  • The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West, David McCullough (2019)

  • The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation’s Call to Greatness, Harlow Giles Unger (2009)

  • The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Big Horn, Nathaniel Philbrick (2010)

  • Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah and the Rise and Fall of the Commanches, S.C. Gwynne (2010)

  • Boone: A Biography, Robert Morgan (2007)