Prepared by David Faris, who had assisted Mr. Sheppard with the last two editions of "Ancestral Roots, Plantagenet Ancestry" provides the descent from the later Plantagenet kings of England (Henry III, Edward I, Edward II, and Edward III) of more than one hundred emigrants from England and Wales to the North American colonies before 1701, including many colonists not included in former editions of "Ancestral Roots." All 137 lines in this new volume include the consecutive generations of married couples with the spouse of Plantagenet descent on the left margin, each such individual being the child of the previous generation. Generation 1 names the parents of an emigrant, and the preceding generations are numbered back in time to the Plantagenet kings. Considerable biographical information is provided together with documentation for each generation.

"This book documents lines of descent for approximately 190 seventeenth-century North American colonists from the Plantagenet dynasty that ruled England from 1154 to 1485. This dynasty was founded by Geoffrey Plantagenet (died 1151), Count of Anjou. The book has been compiled for three basic audiences: (1) For those who desire a reliable reference work for events and individuals in the colonial and medieval time periods; (2) For those interested in their personal family history who seek information regarding their more remote ancestry; and (3) To help readers better understand English history from the viewpoint of family dynamics."--P. viii, v. 1.

"From the earliest records relating to Virginia, we learn the basics about many of these original colonists: their origins, the names of the ships they sailed on, the names of the "hundreds" and "plantations" they inhabited, the names of their spouses and children, their occupations and their position in the colony, their relationships with fellow colonists and Indian neighbors, their living conditions as far as can be ascertained from documentary sources, their ownership of land, the dates and circumstances of their death, and a host of fascinating, sometimes incidental details about their personal lives, all gathered together in the handy format of a biographical dictionary" -- publisher website (January 2008).

This book is the first basic tool in English to trace the origins of Chinese surnames. At the heart of the work are three principal chapters. Chapter 1 describes the history of Chinese surnames, the research on Chinese surnames in literature, and reasons surnames have changed in Chinese history. Chapter 2, by far the largest of the chapters, delivers a genealogical analysis of more than 600 Chinese surnames. Chapter 3 consists of an annotated bibliography of Chinese and English language sources on Chinese surnames. The work concludes with separate indexes to family names, authors, titles, and Chinese-character stroke numbers (one mechanism used for grouping Chinese characters).

This is the new Third Edition of Royalty for Commoners, the first book ever to document the complete known genealogy of John of Gaunt, son of King Edward III & Queen Philippa. The importance of this documentation is that any commoner who can connect his or her own family lineage to that of John of Gaunt can now be shown to share the same basic royal heritage as the most noble knight-the complete heritage, not just the Plantagenet ascent. This is the usual lineage through which a commoner can enter the domain of European royalty, though one might enter the lineage at any number of points. Typically, the American descendant has several colonial ancestors, one or more of whom can be traced to European beginnings. Using over 2,000 published sources, as well as the spectacular resources of the Internet, Mr. Stuart here offers the researcher a host of possibilities, pointing the reader to numerous descents of which he may be completely unaware. This new Third Edition is a nearly complete reworking of previous editions & includes the following changes. * Two dozen lines have been lengthened * Sources now include dates of publication * There are two indexes rather than one, an every-name index & an index of royal titles * Research now ventures into the years before Christ * The Bibliography has been significantly refined & expanded