What began as a list of names, a box of documents, a number of family Bibles, and idle curiosity gradually evolved into a book about the settlement of Virginia and the western conquest of the great Valley of the Shenandoah, the birth of the New River settlements, and the emergence of the Watauga and Holston pioneers on the western slopes of the Appalachian Mountains. Placing the generations into a format of historic events began to bring these fugitives from the European wars and catastrophes into focus as real people. Since this story concerns the early foundation of this nation, the author did not choose to go back beyond the immigration from Europe. In a few cases, however, where the material was available and explanatory, it was incorporated into these pages. This does not mean that the more remote history of others was not available. It just did not contribute to the integrity of this book. The book is not a genealogy although it uses that structure to build the generations. And it is not simply a history. It is a perspective of history, demonstrated through the genealogy and migrations of one family. The whole is dependent upon each life among the hundreds of those who made this family possible. Make no mistake about it! The loss of a single onejust one!and the people that followed would never have been born! The relations are carefully delineated. Children are named where it is possible. To this extent, it is hoped other lineages may find the book useful. The appendix contains copies from books and papers that might be difficult or impossible to obtain. It is important to realize that as the reader goes backward in time, the numbers of people become fewer. This means that the chances of interrelations increase as the two hundredth year marker of the past is approached. All of us share a kinship in the origin and the destiny of the United States of America!

This directory of family associations, based largely on data received in response to questionnaires sent to family associations, reunion committees, and one-name societies, offers contact information on some 6,000 family associations in the US. The directory is useful for those engaging in genealogical research or planning family reunions. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

Previously published by Magna Carta, Baltimore. Published as a set by Genealogical Publishing with the two vols. of the Genealogies in the Library of Congress, and the two vols. of the Supplement. Set ISBN is 0806316691.

Biographical and career information relating to Sydney Charles Arnold, auctioneer. He started his business in Errol Street, North Melbourne. Includes an original letter from his grandaughter, June Mullins, written in 1971.

In 1823, Richard James Arnold, descendant of a Quaker family involved in the movement to abolish slavery in Rhode Island, married Louisa Gindrat of Bryan County, Georgia, and acquired a plantation called White Hall--thirteen hundred acres of rice and cotton land and sixty-eight slaves. Over the next fifty years, Arnold led two distinct, if never entirely separate lives, building through successive Georgia winters a profitable southern "paradise" rooted in human bondage, then returning each spring to his business interests and extended family in Rhode Island. Organized around a surviving plantation journal kept during two winters and one spring, North by South encompasses Arnold's career as a rice and cotton planter as it uncovers the increasingly difficult social and moral disguises that enabled him to move freely through two worlds.