Wise's Eastern Shore of Virginia is a history of the counties of Accomack and Northampton; however, genealogists will be drawn to the book's numerous references to families prominent on the Eastern Shore and to the extensive lists of early settlers and patentees of land.

Brothers James Goff, John Turton Goff (d. 1803), Thomas Goff (1747-1824) and Salathiel Goff (d. 1791), were probably born in England or Wales. They emigrated and settled in Virginia and Maryland. Descendants and relatives lived mainly in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Missouri, Kansas and Texas.

The second volume of the set (see Item 531) covers more families from the early counties of Virginia's Lower Tidewater and Southside regions. With an index in excess of 10,000 names.

From its establishment in 1745, Augusta County, Virginia served as a haven for Scotch-Irish, German, and, to a lesser extent, English immigrants who failed to find economic opportunity or religious freedom in the colonial settlements along the Middle Atlantic coastline. This little known but important work contains detailed genealogies of the twenty families mentioned in the title of the work, who settled in that region of "old western Augusta" that today encompasses Bath and Highland counties, Virginia. In addition to the family histories, the compiler has provided introductory chapters on the history of German and Scotch-Irish settlement to the region; a table of family members who fought in the Colonial, Revolutionary, and Civil Wars, and a full name index with approximately 10,000 entries.