All posts by Robert Charles Anderson

About Robert Charles Anderson

Robert Charles Anderson, Director of the Great Migration Study Project, was educated as a biochemist and served in the United States Army in electronics intelligence. In 1972 he discovered his early New England ancestry and thereafter devoted his time and energies to genealogical research. He published his first genealogical article in 1976, and about the same time began to plan for what eventually became the Great Migration Study Project. In 1983 he received a Master’s degree in colonial American History from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Anderson was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Genealogists in 1978 and has served as Secretary and President of that organization. He became a Contributing Editor of The American Genealogist in 1979, Associate Editor in 1985 and Coeditor in 1993. He has been an editorial consultant to the New England Historical and Genealogical Register since 1989.

ICYMI: The Great Migration: Top-down, bottom-up

Family Stories, ICYMI, Research Methods,

In case you were wondering, American Ancestors’ Great Migration Study Project continues to add new research to uncover the details of immigrants who came to New England between 1636 and 1638. NEHGS will publish a first volume by Ian Watson in early 2023 that will contain letters A-Be for these years, and research will continue for the foreseeable future to cover those who arrived through the year 1640.

[Editor’s note: This blog post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 21 April 2014.]

The activities of the Massachusetts Bay Company in 1629-30 were uniformly organized from the top down. The Company either purchased or hired the vessels to carry the passengers and provisions. The passengers themselves, and especially the critically important professionals such as ministers and soldiers, were recruited by the Company leaders.

Yet this phase of the migration was brief, as most of the merchants involved found the enterprises for which all this activity was expended to be losing propositions and allowed their New England plantations to disperse, some almost immediately and most by the middle of the next decade. The influence of those leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Company who remained behind in England quickly faded away, and by 1632 the top-down direction of the migration process was essentially at an end. Continue reading ICYMI: The Great Migration: Top-down, bottom-up →

ICYMI: Mapping the Great Migration

American History, Collections, ICYMI, Research Methods, Technology, , ,

[Editor’s note: This blog post originally appeared in Vita Brevis 12 April 2019.]

In early 2015 I had just completed work on The Great Migration Directory: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1640, with abbreviated entries for each known head of household or isolated individual participant in the Great Migration. The result was an alphabetical listing of about 5,700 families or individuals. Each entry included last name, first name, English origin, year of migration, first residence in New England, and a brief listing of the best primary and secondary sources available for each. For about 1,800 of the entries, the English origin (defined as the last known residence in England before migration) was known. Continue reading ICYMI: Mapping the Great Migration →

ICYMI: Assorted populations of the Great Migration

ICYMI, Research Methods,

[Editor’s note: This blog post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 24 March 2014.]

While the majority of the immigrants to New England between 1620 and 1640 were Puritans of some variety, a minority were conventional, conforming members of the Church of England, or of no particular religious persuasion at all. For example, West Country fishermen created settlements in Monhegan, Casco, and Richmond Island during the 1620s and early 1630s, accounting for (roughly) one thousand immigrants, or about five percent of the whole Great Migration. Continue reading ICYMI: Assorted populations of the Great Migration →

Mapping the Great Migration

American History, Collections, Research Methods, Technology, , ,

In early 2015 I had just completed work on The Great Migration Directory: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1640, with abbreviated entries for each known head of household or isolated individual participant in the Great Migration. The result was an alphabetical listing of about 5,700 families or individuals. Each entry included last name, first name, English origin, year of migration, first residence in New England, and a brief listing of the best primary and secondary sources available for each. For about 1,800 of the entries, the English origin (defined as the last known residence in England before migration) was known. Continue reading Mapping the Great Migration →

ICYMI: Puritan Pedigrees

Family Stories, ICYMI, News, Research Methods, ,

[Editor’s note: This post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 22 August 2014.]

Robert Charles Anderson_June 2014_1Now that my book on genealogical research methods (Elements of Genealogical Analysis) is out, I have turned my attention to the series of lectures I will be delivering in October and November [2014]; these, in turn, will form the basis for a future book entitled Puritan Pedigrees: The Deep Roots of the Great Migration to New England.

In most of the Great Migration volumes, I have been able to examine the motivations of the migrating families only in the context of events at the time of migration. A few years ago, while working on The Winthrop Fleet, I began to get a better feel for the deeper connections and influences which had been developing for decades and for generations leading up to the migration decision.  Continue reading ICYMI: Puritan Pedigrees →

Introducing The Great Migration Directory

American History, Genealogical Writing, Research Methods, , , ,

Great Migration DirectoryThe Great Migration Directory attempts to include all those who immigrated to New England during the Great Migration, and only those immigrants. After much examination of the historical record, and particularly of the activities of the passenger vessels each spring, I determined that the Great Migration ended during 1640,1 and so this volume is designed to include every head of household or unattached individual who arrived between 1620 and 1640.

This basic conclusion must be tempered by two other considerations, which have always guided the Great Migration Study Project. Continue reading Introducing The Great Migration Directory →

Compiling the Great Migration Directory

American History, News, Research Methods, , ,

Robert Charles Anderson_June 2014_1In the fall of 2010 I was in the midst of researching and writing the seventh and final volume in the Great Migration second series. The publication of that volume in 2011 would mean that sketches had been published for all Great Migration immigrants from 1620 to 1635, somewhat less than one-half of all those who came to New England during the entire Great Migration period, from 1620 to 1640. Given the quarter-century it has taken to reach this point in the Great Migration Study Project, I eventually, and reluctantly, concluded that I would not be the person to write the sketches for immigrants who arrived in New England between 1636 and 1640. And yet I did not want to abandon the Project at that point, and so began to cast about for a mechanism by which I could at least survey the remaining immigrants. Continue reading Compiling the Great Migration Directory →

Puritan Pedigrees

Family Stories, News, Research Methods, ,

Robert Charles Anderson_June 2014_1Now that my book on genealogical research methods (Elements of Genealogical Analysis) is out, I have turned my attention to the series of lectures I will be delivering in October and November; these, in turn, will form the basis for a future book entitled Puritan Pedigrees: The Deep Roots of the Great Migration to New England.

In most of the Great Migration volumes, I have been able to examine the motivations of the migrating families only in the context of events at the time of migration. A few years ago, while working on The Winthrop Fleet, I began to get a better feel for the deeper connections and influences which had been developing for decades and for generations leading up to the migration decision. Continue reading Puritan Pedigrees →

From company to colony

Research Methods,

WinthropFleet_coverEven as the Massachusetts Bay Company was establishing itself in New England in 1630, another London-based joint-stock company, the Providence Island Company, was beginning its settlement project on a small Caribbean island off the coast of Nicaragua. The Providence Island Company was also led by Puritan gentlemen, such as the Earl of Warwick, Lord Saye and Sele, and Lord Brooke. Such men were wealthier and of much higher social status than most of the Massachusetts Bay Company members. Continue reading From company to colony →

The Great Migration: Top-down, bottom-up

Family Stories, Research Methods,

The Winthrop FleetThe activities of the Massachusetts Bay Company in 1629-30 were uniformly organized from the top down. The Company either purchased or hired the vessels to carry the passengers and provisions. The passengers themselves, and especially the critically important professionals such as ministers and soldiers, were recruited by the Company leaders. Continue reading The Great Migration: Top-down, bottom-up →