This book aims to help genealogists at every level learn to trace descendants of ancestors, both direct line and collateral. With step-by-step guidance, methodologies, and practical examples, this guide will give you the tools and confidence to find and make meaningful connections with living family members. In fact, finding living relatives isn’t all that different from tracing your direct-line ancestors and their families. The same skills apply—researching, organizing information, and following clues—but with a focus on connecting the past to the present. This process, known as reverse genealogy, involves creating a detailed family tree, identifying relatives down both ancestral and collateral lines, and using modern tools to track them down.

Cheri Hudson Passey is a professional genealogist, instructor, writer, speaker, and owner of Carolina Girl Genealogy, LLC. She hosts the “GenFriends Genealogy Chat Show on YouTube, where she and a panel of professional genealogists meet weekly to discuss all things genealogy. Cheri began working as a genealogist researcher subcontracted by Eagle Investigative Services, Inc., for the US Army Past Conflict Reparations Branch in 2018. She uses her skills to identify and locate the next of kin, along with YDNA and mtDNA candidates for the families of World War II soldiers who are listed as missing in action. The goal is to use DNA to positively identify remains and, with the permission of next of kin, bring our war heroes home.

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In all, the six volumes contain upwards of 24,000 genealogical sketches. They are arranged alphabetically, and each fact cited therein includes the source of the information. While a minority of the entries are only a few lines long, they, nonetheless, place a pioneer in time and space. Most of the sketches, however, are paragraphs in length, and many are much longer. Here’s a sample entry:

DODMAN, John 2 – WC (1661-63); son of Jn. DODMAN 1 and Elizabeth DEATH (see Jn. DODMAN 1); wit., Jas. CUDWORTH of Newport in [Rhode] Island in the province of Providence, atty. of Wm. BENTON of Roade Island, merch., per virtue of attornyship dtd. 12 Sep 1661, discharge of Dan. HUTT of WC from all transactions, 11 Oct 1661 (WC Deeds Etc 1661-62:55 (53)); on jury that tried case of BUTLER vs. LETTSUM, 29 Apr 1663 (WCOB 1662-54:12) [Named as a son of Jn. & Eliz. (DEATH) DODMAN in the will of Rich. DEATH, Isle of Wight co., 3 Mar 1647 (Isle of Wight Will Book A:17)]

As Mr. Headley writes in the Introduction, there are “stories of great heroism and horrible cruelty, of financial disasters, of great successes, of vicious feuds, of husbands deserting wives and wives deserting husbands, of marriages, births, and funerals, of doctors, blacksmiths, carpenters, ministers, merchants, rogues, scoundrels, and above all planters. . . . Sometimes we see a slice of a person’s life—a few years and then nothing—and occasionally we can follow a person’s entire life from birth to death. . . .  At the very least, this work can provide a guide to locate records about an individual.”

In the Methodology section at the front of each volume, Mr. Headley explains the approach he took in compiling his database, as well as how he addressed the problems associated with 17^th-century spelling and name variants. Extensive appendices appear at the back each volume, covering the project’s sources, bibliography, list of abbreviations, name variants, and placenames. Each volume is fully indexed. The volumes may be purchased as a complete set or volume by volume, according to the following alphabetical sequence: Volume One, A-C; Volume Two, D-G; Volume Three, H-L; Volume Four, M-Q; Volume Five, R-T; and Volume Six, U-Z.

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This book contains references to people from Aberdeen at home and abroad between 1800 and 1850. The entries bring together emigrants, their destinations, especially in North America, the West Indies, and Australasia, with their kin who remained in Scotland. The information is derived from a wide range of sources such as court records, contemporary newspapers and journals, monumental inscriptions, and documents found in archives. The Statistical Report of Scotland (OSA), compiled between 1791 and 1799, and the New Statistical Report, conducted between 1832 and 1845, are especially helpful for understanding the rapid changes in Scottish society brought about by the agricultural and industrial revolutions during this period. This work should enable researchers with roots in Aberdeen to put their family into a historical context.

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The early nineteenth century was a period of restructuring and development resulting from the Agricultural Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. Small farms were formed into larger, more efficient, units which created a labour surplus.  Some of the displaced persons opted the emigrate to the colonies or the United States while other moved to the burgeoning factory towns and collieries of the nearby industrial districts. The rise in transatlantic trade in the eighteenth century, furthermore, generated industrial development in Scotland, especially in the vicinity of Glasgow. Overall there was an expansion of burghs functioning as market and administrative centres.  This book, among other things, identifies many of the burgesses of the burghs of Dunbarton and Inveraray.

Most of the nearly 2,000 Scots and their kinsmen identified here were recorded in contemporary sources, such as court records, newspapers, journals, and monumental inscriptions.  Most entries bring together emigrants, their places of origin and destination, especially in North America and Australasia, with their kin who remained in Scotland.

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