This is a brief highly readable history of the Catholic experience in British America, which shaped the development of the colonies and the nascent republic in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Historian Robert Emmett Curran begins his account with the English reformation, which helps us to understand the Catholic exodus from England, Ireland, and Scotland that took place over the nearly two centuries that constitute the colonial period. The deeply rooted English understanding of Catholics as enemies of the political and religious values at the heart of British tradition, ironically acted as a catalyst for the emergence of a Catholic republican movement that was a critical factor in the decision of a strong majority of American Catholics in 1775 to support the cause for independence

In this comprehensive history, Fr. Charles Connor details the life of Catholics in the American Colonies. It’s a tale that begins with the flight of English Catholics to religious freedom in Maryland in 1634, and continues through the post-Revolutionary period, by which time the constitutions of all but four of the first 13 states contained harsh anti-Catholic provisions. Catholic readers will be proud to learn from these pages that despite almost two centuries of ever-more-intense religious persecutions and even harsher legal prohibitions, American Catholics in the colonies simply refused not to be Catholic. These pages show that from the Jesuit manor houses that planted the seeds of faith in Maryland to the solitary missionary priests who evangelized the New York regions, Catholics kept the faith . . . even unto death. Pioneer Priests and Makeshift Altars is indispensable reading for souls interested in the deep roots of Catholicism in America, and in the holy courage of scores of Catholics who kept remorseless forces from snuffing their faith out. Among other things, you’ll learn here: Why Catholics left the old world for America: their reasons were often not religiousThe tale of The Ark and The Dove that carried the first settlers to MarylandThe Puritan ascendancy that too soon outlawed Catholicism in MarylandThe sole Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence: Can you name him?The surprisingly powerful anti-Catholic sentiments of most of the Founding FathersThe friend of George Washington who became the first Bishop of BaltimoreThe great Catholic post-Revolutionary War migration from Maryland to KentuckyThe cosmopolitan colony whose robust religious liberty was more favorable that Maryland to CatholicismThe Quaker/Catholic alliance that promoted both religionsThe role of persecuted Catholics in the Revolutionary WarWhy, in that War, many Catholics favored the anti-Catholic BritishThe French Jesuits who evangelized New York and its frontier areas, and the saints who were martyred thereThe Iroquois maiden who converted and became a saintThe years in which, throughout the colonies, Catholics became an endangered speciesPlus: much more to acquaint you with the proud heritage of Catholics in the earliest years of our nation!

The Genealogy Annual is a comprehensive bibliography of the year's genealogies, handbooks, and source materials. It is divided into three main sections.p liFAMILY HISTORIES-/licites American and international single and multifamily genealogies, listed alphabetically by major surnames included in each book.p liGUIDES AND HANDBOOKS-/liincludes reference and how-to books for doing research on specific record groups or areas of the U.S. or the world.p liGENEALOGICAL SOURCES BY STATE-/liconsists of entries for genealogical data, organized alphabetically by state and then by city or county.p The Genealogy Annual, the core reference book of published local histories and genealogies, makes finding the latest information easy. Because the information is compiled annually, it is always up to date. No other book offers as many citations as The Genealogy Annual; all works are included. You can be assured that fees were not required to be listed.

Presents an account of the first great transit of people from Britain, Europe, and Africa to the North American British colonies, evaluating its diversity, the survival struggles of immigrants, and their relationships with the indigenous populations of the Eastern seaboard.

In Continental Ambitions: Roman Catholics in North America, the first volume of Kevin Starr’s magisterial work on American Catholics, the narrative evoked Spain, France, and Recusant England as Europeans explored, evangelized, and settled the North American continent. In Continental Achievement: Roman Catholics in the United States, the focus is on the participation of Catholics, alongside their Protestant and Jewish fellow citizens, in the Revolutionary War and the creation and development of the Republic. With the same panoramic view and cinematic style of Starr’s celebrated Americans and the California Dream series, Continental Achievement documents the way in which the American Revolution allowed Roman Catholics of the English colonies of North America to earn a new and better place for themselves in the emergent Republic. John Carroll makes frequent appearances in roles of increasing importance: missionary, constitution writer for his ex-Jesuit colleagues, prefect apostolic, controversialist and defender of the faith, bishop, founder of Georgetown, cathedral developer, archbishop and metropolitan, and negotiator with the Court of Rome. In him, the Maryland ethos regarding Roman Catholicism reached a point of penultimate fulfillment. Starr also vividly portrays other representative personalities in this formative period, including Charles Carroll, the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence; his mother, Elizabeth Brooke Carroll; Sulpician John DuBois, whose escape from France in 1791 was arranged by Robespierre; convert Elizabeth Bayley Seton, founder of the first American sisterhood, the Sisters of Charity; Stephen Moylan, Muster Master General of the Continental Army; Polish military engineer Thaddeus Kosciuszko; Colonel John Fitzgerald, an aide-de-camp to General Washington; Benedict Flaget, the first Bishop of Bardstown, Kentucky; merchant sea captain John Barry, who fought and won the last naval battle of the war; and William DuBourg, Bishop of Louisiana, who offered a Te Deum in a ceremony honoring General Andrew Jackson after his victory in the Battle of New Orleans. With his characteristic honesty and rigorous research, Kevin Starr gives his readers an enduring history of Catholics in the early years of the United States