Savage's Genealogical Dictionary Online
The following article is from Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter and is
copyright 2005 by Richard W. Eastman. It is re-published here with the
permission of the author. Information about the newsletter is available at
http://www.eogn.com.
James Savage's Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England,
Showing Three Generations of Those Who Came Before May, 1692 is one of the
greatest resources for anyone doing genealogy research in colonial New
England. These books were originally published during the U.S. Civil War and
still remain today as one of the greatest resources we have. If you do not
have easy access to a library copy, however, modern-day reprints cost more
than $100. A few years ago the same volumes were digitized and released on
CD-ROM disk and are available for under $50.
Thanks to the efforts of David Blackwell, the same volumes are available
online at no cost. You can even download the volumes and store them on your
own hard drive. You can also copy-and-paste information from the Web site
directly into your genealogy program, word processor or other program. For
instance, here is a copy-and-paste of the first immigrant to North America
who bore my surname:
[EASTMAN] ROGER
, Salisbury, an orig. propr. ancest. it is believ. of all of the name in our
land, d. 16 Dec. 1694, aet. 83; and his wid. Sarah d. 11 Mar. 1698. They had
John, b. 9 Mar. or Apr. 1640; Nathaniel, 18 May 1643; Philip, 20 Dec. 1644;
Thomas, 11 Nov. 1646; Timothy, 29 Nov. 1648; Joseph, 8 Jan. 1651; Benjamin,
12 Feb. 1653; Sarah, 25 Sept. 1655; Samuel, 20 Nov. 1657; and Ruth, 22 Mar.
or Apr. 1662. Sarah m. 13 June 1678, Joseph French jr. and next, 4 Aug. 1684,
Solomon Shepherd, by both had ch. and d. a wid. of gr. age 1 Dec. 1748. That
he came from Southampton 1638, on board the Confidence, in comp. with many
wh. sat down at Salisbury, and neighb. towns, as presum. from a paper
supplied by Henry Stephens of London, in Geneal. Reg. II. 108-10, after some
correct. of errors found by H. G. Somerby, giv. in Geneal. Reg. V. 440, would
be rec. as prob. in spite of the name being in the latter chang. to Robert,
and the other circumst. of his being call. serv. 15 yrs. sold, for the
numeral should be 25, and the designat. may well seem only a deception to get
clear from the orders in counc. to embarrass emigrat.
You a do the same: find information on your early New England ancestry and
then easily insert that data into your database. The online version of James
Savage's Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England,
Showing Three Generations of Those Who Came Before May, 1692 is available at:
http://www.usgennet.org/usa/topic/newengland/savage
Like most genealogy books, Savage's Dictionary did contain errors. Professor
Robert Kraft's 1994 transcription with many corrections of James Savage's 4
volume work may be found at:
http://www.usigs.org/library/books/ma/savage/savage.htm
Do you have comments, questions or corrections to this article? If so, please
post your message on the newsletter's Daily Edition web site at
http://www.eogn.com