When I found out my great-great grandmother came from Quaker stock I was glad to find this book. After reading it I was scared to death that I would never find anything on her family! Don't let this happen to you!
Oh, you think I'm kidding. But I'm not. Let me quote from page 32, emphasis from the book itself:
"LEARN THE ELEMENTS OF THIS MONTHLY MEETING WELL. FOR IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO DO ANY VALID AND COMPREHENSIVE RESEARCH WITHOUT MONTHLY MEETING RECORDS. THEREFORE, IT FOLLOWS THAT THE MONTHLY MEETING OF AN ANCESTOR MUST BE KNOWN BEFORE ANY MEANINGFUL RESEARCH CAN BE DONE. WE CANNOT EMPHASIZE THIS POINT ENOUGH."
This is the general tone of the book. All capital warnings are placed throughout. The above paragraph, by the way, is just telling you that you have to know where your ancestor lived and worshipped to be able to find out more about them. In reality, not so scary, eh?
Now, this book has its place. It has some informative background on Quakers and Quakerism, a nice biblography and a brief rundown on repostitories of Quaker Meeting records. Also, it reflects the year it was written in (1987) which was just prior to the popular boom of genealogy, and so its dryness is not atypical. However, it should have been so much more.
There should have been more on migration, and what that means to the researcher. For example, as soon as one of my ancestral Quaker families was all nicely settled in a town with great record keeping, they would pick up and move to the frontier! This was very common for Quakers who, for various reasons, wanted to move away from societies based on other religions. There should have been at least one migration map. The only maps included are reprints of certain meetings locations from an 1860 book, which to top it off, have no actual land behind them, leaving you with no more than a bulleted list.
Although I know the subtitle of this book is "Finding them in Quaker Records" I think one or two paragraphs should have been spent directing researchers to other records you would be likely to find Quakers in. You will most certainly find an ancestor or two in 'Loyalist' records of various kinds (as if you weren't pro-war, that immediately made you a loyalist during the revolution.) You will find them in court records (the Quakers even had their own courts in the 17th century colonies.) You will find them in land records and every other sort of non-religious civil record out there. You just have to keep in mind that your ancestors were Quakers, along with the implications of that, as you search. To be honest I was very surprised that the Quaker Courts and Loyalist angles weren't even mentioned here as they are specifically relevant to Quakers.
They also should have covered emigration records. Before 1800 many Quakers emigrated together, and the first ships to come to the colonies because of Penn are well documented.
Also, there are several times in this book the authors do not go into detail on subjects. They do not offer you reference, but refer you to other works which are usually difficult to find. They also do not approach Irish Quakers, which is a mistake, as Ireland was home to so many Quaker emigres of the 1700's. You will often find that an English family fled to Ireland first before making it to the colonies.
Besides being sparse, in the end this book does more work telling you what you're NOT going to find rather than what you WILL find. The last chapter itself was placed to give the reader 'words of encouragement' but then just goes on to tell you how difficult your search will be. An appropriate ending to this book, but inappropriate for an author trying to inform and interest a reader.
If you have pre-1800 Quaker lines you are going to have to buy this book. There are no other books like it on the market. Just don't be intimidated by it. Instead, use its core information and not its commentary.
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