Ancestry is pleased to announce a new publication from Patricia Law Hatcher, FASG.  Researching Your Colonial New England Ancestors leads genealogists past the American Revolution to the time when their ancestors were English citizens, blazing the way in the new territory. Pat provides a rich description of the world in which those ancestors lived and details the records they have left behind. Researching Your Colonial New England Ancestors teaches family historians how to have a colonial mindset, provides them with a wealth of resources to use, and sets them on the path to the colonial American world.

This book is intended as an introduction to doing genealogical research of people who lived in colonial New England. It assumes that the researcher has arrived in the colonial period through sound genealogical research and that he or she is familiar with basic records, repositories, and research techniques.

The settlement of New England, its religious and political controversies, its wars, and its relationship with the native populations have been discussed in hundreds of books and articles, some of which are indicated in the Resources section. The Background section presents an overview of those topics and provides an historical framework oriented toward genealogists.

The researcher will encounter a myriad of nonstandard records and sources in colonial research. Especially during the early colonial period, understanding the history and background, which define the environment in which records were created, are often more important than a reference catalog of records.

This book is currently available in the Ancestry Store.