Book Shelf: Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America by David Hackett Fischer

This is a big brick of a book, even in paperback. Because my lineage includes ancestors from all four of the groups described in the book, I've found it enormously helpful in understanding some of the information that puzzled me at first.

[University of Oxford Press]

The author begins with an introduction in which he explains how each of the four largest waves of settlers in the North American colonies before the Revolution brought with them from their native land not only their (mostly) common Protestant religion and shared English language, but also distinct regional customs, attitudes, and patterns of living that set them apart from their neighbors.

The titles of the main chapters can help the genealogical reader focus on those sections that may be relevant to her research:

• East Anglia to Massachusetts: The Exodus of the English Puritans, 1629-41
• The South of England to Virginia: Distressed Cavaliers and Indentured Servants, 1642-75
• North Midlands to the Delaware: The Friends' Migration, 1675-1725
• Borderlands to the Backcountry: The Flight from North Britain, 1717-1775

Albion's Seed is available at all the usual places, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble and AbeBooks. You can also see if your local library has it.

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