Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, there was a continuous flow of settlers from Barbados to virtually every point on the Atlantic seaboard, with the result that many families in America today trace their origins in the New World first to Barbados. Records of Barbados families exist in a variety of places and indeed a great many have been written up and published in the turn-of-the-century journal Caribbeana and The Journal of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society.This present work contains every article pertaining to family history ever published in these journals.The combined articles, reprinted here in facsimile, range from conventional genealogies and pedigrees to will abstracts and Bible records and refer to some 15,000 persons, all of whom are listed in the index.

The life of Davenport Padgett spanned part of the 19th century and most of the twentieth. His almost-photographic memory goes back to 1898 when he was four and saw his first train. Beginning with this first memory, he tells the reader story after story that reveal a remarkable man who loved life, appreciated people, and enjoyed every day. He said he lived his life as his father taught him: to treat every man as his brother and every woman as his sister. He also said he believed that people were good if you'd let them be and that love is the most important thing in the world.