Georg Dachstätter (b.ca.1679) and his family immigrated from the Palatinate of Germany (via England) to Manor Livingston along the Hudson River in New York in 1709/1710, and moved to Stone Arabia, New York about 1737. Descendants (chiefly spelling the surname Dockstader) lived in New York, Illinois and elsewhere.

In 1723 a number of Palatine families were allowed to take up lands in the Mohawk Valley of New York. Those settling in the bounds of the present county of Herkimer were known as the Burnetsfield Patentees, after the name of the grant made by New York Governor William Burnet, and are the subject of this formidable work. This book deals with the families established in the area before the Revolution, and detailed genealogies are given for almost 100 of them.