By the late seventeenth century there were hundreds of baronies in Scotland; however, in the aftermath of the Jacobite rising of 1745-1746, the British government enacted the Heritable Jurisdiction Act of 1747, which reduced the powers of barons and the nobility in general.

For this work, Mr. Dobson has traced the origin and line of descent of nearly 1,000 Scottish baronies and baronetcies, including some whose progeny eventually moved to the Americas. In assembling this unprecedented collection, Mr. Dobson consulted numerous primary and secondary sources. His principal source was the Register of the Great Seal of Scotland from about the year 1320. This required him to examine over 20,000 documents written in Latin. Typical of these descriptions is the following one for Hector McLean, Baron of Duart:

MCLEAN OF DUART IN ARGYLL. On 9 January 1540, King James V granted several properties in Inverness-shire incorporated into the Barony of Duart to Hector McLean, son and heir apparent of Hector McLean of Duart; on 12 November 1542 King James V granted Hector McLean, son and heir apparent of Hector McLean of Duart, the lands and Barony of Duart; on 4 February 1549, Queen Mary granted Hector McLean of Duart the lands and Barony of Ardgour in Inverness-shire; John McLean, alias Makaleer, a merchant in Gothenborg, Sweden, was enobled there in 1649, and later was created a Baronet by King Charles II during his exile, McLean died in Gothenborg when his son Sir John McLean succeeded to the title. Sir Hector McLean, son of Sir John McLean, a Jacobite who fought at the Battles of Killiecrankie and at Sheriffmuir. [An Anglicisation of the Gaelic Mac Gille Eoin meaning ‘son of the servant of John’, examples date from the thirteenth century.] [John McLean, a rebel, was transported to Jamaica in 1685, while Donald McLean, a merchant, died in St Augustine in 1778.] [The Jacobite Peerage, Edinburgh, 1904].

The work includes a list of principal sources and an appendix consisting of Scots-Irish baronetcies established in Ireland and in the New World.

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Also new in this volume are the many connections to distinguished Dudley descendants identified by Gary Boyd Roberts in his two volumes of Notable Kin and elsewhere. Americans linked to Governor Thomas Dudley will find near or distant cousins in actor Humphrey Bogart, astronaut Alan Shepard, Jr., Ella Botts Rice (first wife of entrepreneur and movie mogul Howard Hughes), Mary Storer Potter (first wife of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow), and many more “notable kin.”

Dudley descendants also share the governor’s royal and notable ancestry through his mother and likely his father, and through his second wife Katherine Deighton. His mother was a descendant of Charlemagne, Alfred the Great, William the Conqueror, and John, King of England. Dudley’s progeny can also claim as ancestors at least seven of the twenty-five barons who witnessed King John’s signature on the Magna Carta.

This second edition is part of an ongoing multi-volume series concerning Americans of royal and noble ancestry, beginning with the immigrant of royal descent and continuing through the colonial period to the Revolutionary War and often beyond. The format of the work is a modified version of that used in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, with citations primarily to published vital records and major family histories.

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The purpose of the book is to provide a genealogical historywith documented sources (using vital records primarily) for the descendants of Samuel and Judith (Everard) Appleton. Where possible, the identity of the parents of each known spouse is also provided, along with relevant biographical, genealogical, and historical details. Americans linked to Samuel and Judith Appleton will find near or distant cousins among such distinguished individuals as President Franklin Pierce, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, Jr. Other descendants include “signer” William Whipple, Jr., Mrs. John Singleton Copley, James Russell Lowell, Francis Parkman, Jr., Phillips Brooks, Josiah Quincy, Jr., and poet Robert Frost.

The book concludes with an index of over 3,000 entries and a comprehensive bibliography. It should be noted that men named in the fifth or sixth generation often saw service in the Revolutionary War, and the royal connection of many of these individuals through the Appleton line is well documented. In addition, the author has appended a Lineage Society Index which lists ancestors through whom descendants can claim eligibility for hereditary societies that honor Mayflower passengers, Revolutionary War soldiers, colonial governors, and physicians.

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Thousands of Americans can claim the Marbury family’s lineal connections to their royal and noble ancestry, from William the Conqueror through Edward I. These ancestors include John, King of England, who signed the Magna Carta in 1215 at Runnymede, as well as many of the barons who witnessed his signature on that famous document. All later kinds of Spain, Holy Roman and Austrian emperors, most later English and French kinds, all kings of Prussia and Russian czars, beginning with Alexander I, are distant cousins as well.

This volume is the second in a projected multi-volume series dealing with Americans of royal and noble ancestry. Taking the colonial period as a point of departure, it focuses on two of Reverend Francis Marbury’s daughters, Anne and Katherine, who immigrated with their husbands to the New World in the 1630s. It covers the first five generations of their descendants, carrying the various lines up to and beyond the Revolutionary War, into the sixth generation. The generational layout of the work follows a modified format of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, with citations for all five generations based exclusively on vital records and approved family histories.

The book concludes with an every-name index of several thousand entries and a comprehensive bibliography. In addition, the author appended a “Lineage Society Index” with names of eligible ancestors in a number of hereditary societies, including the Colonial Clergy, Colonial Governors, Mayflower Descendants, and Revolutionary War Patriots.

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Like the previous editions, it embodies the very latest research in the highly specialized field of royal genealogy. As a result, out of a total of 398 ancestral lines, 91 have been extensively revised and 60 have been added, while almost all lines have had at least some minor corrections, amounting altogether to a 30 percent increase in text. Previous discoveries have now been integrated into the text and recently discovered errors have been corrected. And for the first time, thanks to the efforts of the new editors, this edition contains an every-name index, replacing the cumbersome indexes of the past.

In addition to Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, Malcolm of Scotland, and Robert the Strong, descents in this work are traced from the following ancestral lines: Saxon and English monarchs, Gallic monarchs, early kings of Scotland and Ireland, kings and princes of Wales, Gallo-Romans and Alsatians, Norman and French barons, the Riparian branch of the Merovingian House, Merovingian kings of France, Isabel de Vermandois, and William de Warenne.

“The appearance of new editions of Ancestral Roots and Magna Charta Sureties every few years is a strong indication of the demand for a definitive work on the pre- American ancestry of colonists with one or more lines of royal descent.”—New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, vol. 124, no. 2, 1993

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