by Cherry Fletcher Bamberg FASG and Judith Crandall Harbold,, 2018, Rhode Island Genealogical Society, Hope, R.I.
10x7, hardcover, dustjacket, 462+xxxiv pages. Illustrations, genealogical charts, maps, bibliography, index. ISBN 978-0-9827665-4-5.

 

JOHN CLARKE, one of the founders of Rhode Island, lived in a world very different from ours, a world of wonders, of religious explanations for natural and social events, of new beginnings and profound dislocation in his native country. He remains a more elusive figure than Roger Williams or Samuel Gorton. Nonetheless, John Clarke had brothers and sisters, three wives, friends and enemies, as well as communities of faith in America and in England. This book explores these connections as well as the settings of John Clarke’s life: the village in which he grew up, the towns he helped to found in Rhode Island, and the vast metropolis of London in which he won the Rhode Island Charter of 1663. Against the passionate opposition of Rhode Island’s neighbors, John Clarke’s championship of toleration of religion helped to make it one of America’s core principles.

 

Volume 2 - Generation 4

by William B. Saxbe, Jr., CG, FASG, 2011.

Rhode Island Genealogical Society is delighted to announce the publication of the second volume of the critically acclaimed book Richard Bowen (1594?-1675) of Rehoboth, Massachusetts and His Descendants. This volume covers the fourth generation of the Bowens in meticulous Register format.  The entire print run has been generously donated by the author to RIGS.

 

Volume 3 - Generations 5 and 6

by William B. Saxbe, Jr., CG, FASG

Rhode Island Genealogical Society is delighted to announce the publication of the third and final volume of the critically acclaimed book Richard Bowen (1594?‒1675) of Rehoboth, Massachusetts and His Descendants, by William B, Saxbe, Jr., CG, FASG. This volume covers the fifth generation of the Bowens in meticulous Register format. The entire print run has been generously donated by the author to RIGS.

This large, handsome volume covers the great-great-grandchildren of Richard1 Bowen through his grandsons in the third generation. It covers the fifth generation from the first birth in 1704 to the last death in 1854. The sixth generation, treated in less detail, included members who lived to 1884. In the Introduction Dr. Saxbe discusses the military background against which many of the characters in the book lived their lives. Bowen descendants will be particularly interested in information on DNA testing. Few genealogies even consider the meaning of family, but the Preface offers thoughtful insights that will enrich the whole discipline.

This book continues the features that made Volumes 1 and 2 such fine examples of genealogical writing: exhaustive research, clarity of presentation, a comprehensive bibliography, and a fine index. Each chapter begins with a page showing the names of the people who will be presented. This layout makes the family relationships, often confusing in a large compiled genealogy, particularly easy to understand. This volume adds twenty pages of carefully documented additions and corrections to Volumes 1 and 2, a bonus rarely found in multi-volume genealogies. These ongoing corrections—and the promise of more—allow readers to gain insight not only into the facts of the Bowen family but the cumulative nature of genealogical research. This generation left more visual evidence than the preceding ones, and the book includes beautiful color illustrations in addition to maps.

While Bowens occupy fourteen pages in the index, there are many other families with substantial mention: Baker, Bliss, Brown/Browne, Bullock, Carpenter, Cole, Cook/Cooke, Davis, Durfee, Goff, Green/Greene, Hix/Hicks, Luther, Martin, Pearce and variants, Read/Reed, Sheppard, Smith, Walker, Whitaker, and Wood.

 

Volume 4 - Unassigned Bowen Records

by William B. Saxbe, Jr., CG, FASG

With Additions and Corrections to Volumes 1, 2, and 3, and with a List of other Bowen publications by the author.

 

 

 

by Wayne G. Tillinghast
Hope RI: Rhode Island Genealogical Society, originally published in book form 2006, Digital Version 2013
513 pages plus appendix, name index and notes

Available in ePub format for Kindle and other devices.

The Return of a Classic!

The Tillinghasts in America The First Four Generations was published in 2006 to the delight of researchers of early Rhode Island genealogy and the acclaim of critics. It received the Donald L. Jacobus Award from the American Society of Genealogists as an outstanding genealogical work. Unfortunately for readers, the small run of books was quickly sold out. Now the book is once again available, this time in digital format with full linking.

This book is a rich source of genealogical information on the Tillinghast family. Pardon Tillinghast, his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren played major roles in the life of the colony and young state. Since they married into all of the leading families of Rhode Island, this genealogy reads like a Who's Who of colonial Providence. The author traces both males and female lines with abundant detail and meticulous documentation. Families in Newport, Kent County, Washington County, Rhode Island, New London, Connecticut, and Swansea and Rehoboth, Massachusetts are also studied in depth.

Researchers of the following families will find this book especially helpful: Aborn, Allen/Allin, Almy, Angell, Anthony, Aplin, Archer, Arnold, Atkins, Ayer, Bacon, Bailey, Baker, Bailey, Ballard, Ballou, Barber, Barney, Battey, Bentley, Blodgett, Bolles, Borden, Bowen, Bowler, Brayton, Briggs, Brown, Buffington, Bull, Burroughs, Burton, Carew, Carey, Carpenter, Case, Casey, Chase, Champlin, Chandler, Chapman, Clarke, Coggeshall, Cole, Collins, Colvin, Congdon, Cooke, Corey, Cornell, Cozzens, Cranston, Crawford, Crocker, Davis, Dennis, Dexter, Drowne, Dyer, Earl, Easton, Ellis, Fenner, Fiske, Flagg, Francis, Freebody, Foster, Fry, Gardner, Gibbs, Gladding, Goddard, Godfrey, Gorton, Greene, Griffing, Grinnell, Hadwen, Hale, Hall, Hallstead, Hammond, Harris, Haynes, Hazard, Henry, Hill, Hodges, Holden, Holmes, Holroyd, Hopkins, Hoxsie, Hurlburt, Huske, Irish, Ives, Jackson, James, Jencks, Johnson, Jones, Kelton, Kingsley, Knight, Knowles, Lewis, Luther, Manchester, Martin, Mason, Mathewson, Mawney, Mercer, Miller, Morton, Munroe, Nichols, Norris, Norton, Noxon, Odlin, Olney, Parsons, Pearce, Peckham, Potter, Power, Randall, Rathbun, Rawson, Remington, Reynolds, Rhodes, Robinson, Rogers, Rounds, Russell, Sabin, Salisbury, Sanford, Sheldon, Sisson, Slocum, Smith, Spencer, Spooner, Springer, Stafford, Starr, Streeter, Sweet, Tabor, Taylor, Thomas, Thompson, Thornton, Tibbetts, Townsend, Vaughn, Vernon, Wait, Wales, Ward, Waterman, Weaver, Westcott, Whipple, Whitford, Wickes, Wightman, Wilcox, Wiley, Williams, Wing, Winsor, Wood, Wyatt, and Young.

Based on patient archival research, the book includes far more than names and dates. Through this one family we see people's reactions to various events in Rhode Island history, including the burning of the Gaspee, the Revolution, religious controversies, the maritime trade, the slave trade, the issuance of paper money, inoculation, containment of smallpox and yellow fever, business successes and failures, and financial and romantic heartaches. The genealogical detective work, especially on the male lines, is superb. Many longstanding confusions between people of the same name are carefully resolved. Some knotty genealogical problems”ones that baffled even the people who experienced them firsthand”are clearly explained. The extensive index was always a delight to use, but digital features make searching even easier. The Tillinghast Monument on Benefit St., Providence. Photos by Vincent F. Luti.

Wayne Tillinghast, an eleventh-generation descendant of Elder Pardon Tillinghast, was born and raised in Norwich, Connecticut. He presently resides at Groton Long Point, Connecticut, with his wife Roslind. A graduate of the Norwich Free Academy, he received a B.S. degree in Business Administration from the University of Connecticut and graduated with honors, ranking first in his class, from the University of Connecticut School of Law in 1960. He practiced law in Norwich since his admission to the bar in 1960, serving as the senior partner of the Norwich law firm of Brown Jacobson P.C. Tillinghast. From 1979 to 1999 he also served as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Connecticut Law School, where he taught a course on Trial Practice. Tillinghast has written extensively about law, history, and genealogy. His most recent book is 1797 The Year the Elephant Visited Providence (2010).

 

Barbara R. Carroll

(Providence: Italian American Historical Society of Rhode Island, 2012).

Soft cover, 192 pp., illustrated with some 300 photographs, appendix.

 

This book includes material from oral histories collected by members of Society over two years. It is divided into sections on the emigration from their native country, daily life in Rhode Island, and return to Italy.
 

by Wayne G. Tillinghast
Hope RI: Rhode Island Genealogical Society, 2010
Soft cover, 248 pages, 6 x 9 inches, illustrated, appendices, bibliography, and index. ISBN 978-0-9827665-0-7.
 

From this entertaining tale of life in Providence during the year 1797, we discover the varied interests and concerns of the people who lived there at that time. They engaged in a joyous and lengthy celebration of President John Adams and a subsequent repeated celebration of the anniversary of American Independence. From the detailed offerings of the various merchants and tradesmen we are apprised of what was sought in the marketplace. We become aware of the nature of goods exported and imported in the foreign maritime trade as well as the identity of the various merchants, sea captains, and vessel-owners.

 

by RIGS members John Eylers Sterling, Barbara J. Austin, and Letty Champion; ed.Cherry Fletcher Bamberg, FASG, 546 pages, 2009.

The Rhode Island Genealogical Society is pleased to announce its Special Publication No. 10. Researchers who have used the Rhode Island Historic Cemetery Database over the last twenty years or any of the cemetery books inspired by it can rejoice over this new publication. Although Newport was the most important city in colonial Rhode Island, its early burial grounds have never previously been comprehensively transcribed in a single, beautifully illustrated book.

What sets this publication apart from anything else in the field is the optional companion set of two DVDs with 8,500 high-resolution, high quality photographs of the gravestones. Although the book can be enjoyed on its own, many readers will want to see for themselves what is being described, especially when the stone marks the grave of their own ancestor. Students of gravestone carving will revel in the opportunity to see such an overwhelming number of stones by some of the finest carvers in colonial America.

Like our other publications, Newport Colonial Burial Grounds is priced well below most small-run genealogical books. Our intention is to make the material available to as many readers as possible. Your purchase will support future publications.

 

By Lorraine Tarket-Arruda and Gayle F. Waite, ed. Jodi (Brusseau) LaCroix (n.p.: The Authors, 2008). 

 

 

by Cherry Fletcher Bamberg
(Greenville, R.I.: Rhode Island Genealogical Society, 2001)

Hardcover, 614+xvi pages, indexed, black-and white illustrations.

ISBN 0-9604144-4-4-4.
 

John Gorton was elder of the Six Principle Church of East Greenwich from 1753 to his death in 1792, and his papers, now at Rhode Island Historical Society, document the life of the church and the many Rhode Islanders who used its services for baptism, marriage, and burial. His records include the names of luminaries like Nathaniel Greene and Catharine Littlefield, as well as sailors, farmers, tradesmen, Indians, slaves, and black and white soldiers in the Revolution. Gorton preached not only to the solid citizens of Kent County but also to people with a full range of human failings: men who abandoned their wives, pregnant brides, deserters, counterfeiters, and even an insane murderer. Footnotes provide hundreds of carefully researched "mini-biographies" of people mentioned. Introduction, index, illustrations.

 

by Althea H. McAleer
Hard cover, 392 pp., 2001.

The sequel to Graveyards of North Kingstown, Rhode Island, this book offers a transcription of the nearly ten thousand gravestones in North Kingstown Historic Cemetery 26 in the Association for Gravestone Studies format. Although Elm Grove Cemetery was opened in the nineteenth century, it contains many earlier burials as families moved graves from small burial grounds to this garden cemetery. Introduction, photographs, indexes.

 

ed. by Cherry Fletcher Bamberg
Hard cover, 528 pp., 2000.

An invaluable resource for eighteenth-century Warwick research, this book makes available for the first time a transcription of all three portions of Samuel Tillinghast's diary. A retired sea captain, Tillinghast noted the deaths of hundreds of people during the ten years of his diary, carefully recording the circumstances: Mary Clapp who died with her garters around her neck, the ferryman Nathaniel Hill who drowned off Long Point, old Granny Olney who fell off a lime cart and was run over, the Indian John Absalom who was hanged at Providence for murder, and many more. As many as possible of the people mentioned in the diary are identified in footnotes with substantial genealogical information. Extended introduction, general and name indexes, illustrated with photographs and maps.

 

by Bruce C. MacGunnigle
soft cover, 268 pages, 1991

This classic book East Greenwich, Rhode Island Historical Cemetery Inscriptions (1991) remains a favorite among readers interested in the people of East Greenwich. Although enhancements to certain cemeteries have been made and other burial grounds discovered since its publication, it continues to serve as a useful guide to the town's numerous cemeteries. Cemeteries are presented in order of the official R.I. Historical Cemetery Number with the gravestones in natural -- not alphabetical -- order. The names, dates, and relationships are given for each, and occasionally an unusual inscription is added. Each gravestone is keyed to a map at the end of the book to enable the reader to find an individual gravestone with ease.

 

The author Bruce C. MacGunnigle has contributed significantly to the study of Rhode Island history and genealogy in many different ways over the last forty years and continues to research and write today.

 

 

 

(Special Bonus Issue 2022 of Rhode Island Roots)
by Linda Matthew.
Soft Cover, 152 pp

 

(Special Bonus Issue 2021 of Rhode Island Roots)
by Linda L. Mathew
Soft cover, 142 pp.

 

(Special Bonus Issue 2020 of Rhode Island Roots)

by Cynthia Comery Ferguson

Soft cover, 78 pp.

 

(Special Bonus Issue 2019 of Rhode Island Roots)
by Linda L. Mathew

 

(Special Bonus Issue 2018 of Rhode Island Roots)
by Linda L. Mathew

 

(Special Bonus Issue 2017 of Rhode Island Roots)
by Linda L. Mathew

 

 

(Special Bonus Issue 2016 of Rhode Island Roots)
by Linda L. Mathew
Soft cover, 152 pp

 

(Special Bonus Issue 2015 of Rhode Island Roots)
by Catherine Hey
Soft cover, 152 pp.

 

(Special Bonus Issue 2014 of Rhode Island Roots)
by Linda L. Mathew
Soft cover, 152 pp.

 

(Special Bonus Issue 2013 of Rhode Island Roots)
by Cherry Fletcher Bamberg, FASG
Soft cover

 

(Special Bonus Issue 2012 of Rhode Island Roots)
by Cherry Fletcher Bamberg, FASG
Soft cover, 152 pp.

 

(Special Bonus Issue 2009 of Rhode Island Roots)
by Cherry Fletcher Bamberg, FASG
Soft cover, 152 pp

 

(Special Bonus Issue 2008 of Rhode Island Roots)
by Cherry Fletcher Bamberg, FASG
Soft cover, 152 pp.

 

(Special Bonus Issue 2007 of Rhode Island Roots)
by Linda L. Mathew
Soft cover, 152 pp.

This issue continues the valuable extracts presented in the first Special Bonus Issue, with particular emphasis on the examination of people in Providence without a legal settlement.

 

(Special Bonus Issue 2006 of Rhode Island Roots)
by Linda L. Mathew
Soft cover, 152 pp.

Abstracts of genealogical information from Providence Town Council records during a critical period of Rhode Island history, this carefully indexed volume offers a wealth of detail on people hard to discover in other records. Limited quantities.

 

by Patrick T. Conley and William J. Jennings, Jr.

2013

 

In an era when immigration was at its peak, the Fabre Line offered the only transatlantic route to southern New England.  One of its most important ports was in Providence, Rhode Island.  Nearly eighty-four thousand immigrants were admitted to the country between the years 1911 and 1934.  Almost one in nine of these individuals elected to settle in Rhode Island after landing in Providence, amounting to around eleven thousand new residents.  Most of these immigrants were from Portugal and Italy, and the Fabre Line kept up a brisk and successful business.  However, both the line and the families hoping for a new life faced major obstacles in the form of World War I, the immigration restriction laws of the 1920s and the Great Depression.

 

Join authors Patrick T. Conley and William J. Jennings, Jr., as they chronicle the history of the Fabre Line and its role in bringing new residents to the Ocean State.

 

 

Hardcover; 650 pp., 2018
ISBN 0-9615790-1-3

 

What did Freelove Burroughs’s case of measles have in common with Thomas Cornell's alleged murder of his mother? Or the insurrection on board the slave ship Othello with Joseph Bull’s assault on goldsmith May Davis about a tea pot?

— These four situations and hundreds of others, provided reasons for court cases in 17th and 18th-century Newport.

These records provide an intriguing window on colonial Newport. The volume consists of 1,182 abstracts of file papers in Rhode Island court cases, varying in length from a couple of lines to several pages. Included are depositions, wills, deeds, accounts, and other documents, some of which replace Newport records lost or damaged during the Revolutionary War. Verbatim quotes preserve original spelling that allows the reader to almost hear the accents of the speakers  thus capturing the flavor of colonial Rhode Island and providing colorful glimpses of hundreds of people and situations. Illustrations of 22 documents enhance the text. Several lists, including one of persons by occupation and another of ships, complement the single index that covers persons, places, and subjects.

 

(Special Bonus Issue 2010 of Rhode Island Roots)
by Catherine Hey Soft cover, 152 pp.

 

(Special Bonus Issue 2011 of Rhode Island Roots)
by Linda L. Mathew
Soft cover, 152 pp

 

 

Hardcover; 256 pages, 1998.
ISBN 0-9615790-2-1

 

This book is a literal transcription of the first half of “Newport Court Book A” — actually a record of the Court of Trials for the entire Colony. The murder trial of Thomas Cornell of Portsmouth in 1672 is recorded here, and a 1676 court martial of several Indians for specific actions against colonists in King Philip's War, as well as many bastardy cases and other matters. Full lists of jurors are included.

This volume extends the coverage of Rhode Island Court Records in print to 1704, picking up in 1671 where earlier records published (by the Rhode Island Historical Society in 1920 and 1922) stopped.
An appendix includes twelve pages of Warwick Quarterly Court Records 1659-1674, first published privately in pamphlet form in 1922. There are two indexes, one for persons (with entries for jurors distinguished from people named in cases), and a second that covers places and subjects.

 

Volume 1 - Generations 1- 3

by William B, Saxbe, Jr
Hope, RI, Rhode Island Genealogical Society, 353 + xii pages, 2011
hard cover, library binding, illustrated, bibliography, index of names. ISBN 978-0-615-49315-2.

Rhode Island Genealogical Society is pleased to announce the publication of the first volume of a new book, Richard Bowen (1594?-1675) of Rehoboth, Massachusetts and His Descendants, by William B, Saxbe, Jr., CG, FASG. This volume covers the first three generations of this large family in meticulous Register format.

 

Although permanently out of stock, the book can be acccessed online for free at the following link:  

https://archive.org/details/richardbowen159401saxb

 

Gayle E. Waite & Lorraine Tarket-Arruda, ed. by Martha Lorenson Baton.

hard cover, 272 pp, 2018.

 

by Bruce C. MacGunnigle, 2014, published by the author, soft cover,, 191 pages, illustrated

Strolling in Historic East Greenwich tells the story of seventy of the most historic houses in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. Arranged as walking tours for four key streets, Division, King, Main, and Peirce Streets, Bruce MacGunnigle tells the story of each house, relating interesting details about the history of the house, and the people who lived there. Homeowners range from former slaves who became Revolutionary War soldiers to one of America’s leading transcendental poets; old Yankees, new immigrants, doctors, lawyers, mill workers, blacksmiths, even the King of Block Island! This book provides a fascinating look inside these historic homes and the lives of their owners.

 

Jane Hoxie Maxson, ed. Cherry Fletcher Bamberg FASG (n.p. The Author, 2009)

This careful transcription of the diaries of J. Irving Maxson opens the door for researchers to a new era - the early twentieth century - and a new part of Rhode Island - Westerly. The diaries are the only survivors of fifty years of diary-keeping, the rest having been lost in the 1938 Hurricane. A descendant of the Maxson family which had lived in Westerly for two hundred years, J. Irving Maxson was deeply involved with the family building company, Maxson & Co. of Westerly which built many of the grand houses, public buildings, and hotels in southern New England. He was deeply rooted in his family, community, and church. A prominent man, he took a leading role in his community, representing Westerly in the General Assembly and serving on innumerable boards. He and his family worshipped and socialized with a large group of friends and relations from the Pawcatuck Seventh Day Baptist Church in Westerly. Travel, summers at the beach, yacht racing, vaudeville-J. Irving really enjoyed life, never imagining how easily his security could slip away. The shifting economic tides of the early twentieth century and some questionable partners brought down Maxson & Co. by 1910. The company sold, J. Irving set out to reinvent himself and did it over and over for the rest of his life. Most diaries are like a play performed with only one set and a very limited cast, but not this one. To find work J. Irving traveled to Cuba, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut, moving his family and dwindling possessions with him. He ran a fruit plantation in Cuba, managed shipyards during World War I, skippered a steamer between Connecticut and Rhode Island, and captained a crippled ship in the Caribbean. In each of these places he was meeting new people and writing about them in his diary. Whatever misfortunes he suffered, he never gave up. It is a story of bravery and love.

A thoughtful introduction sets the scene and provides readers with an understanding of the family structure. Much patient research went into identifying many individuals named, and complete name index makes it easy to find references. Genealogists will be particularly interested in the ties that linked Sabbatarians from Westerly with those in New Jersey, Wisconsin, and upstate New York. Best of all, many unique family photographs make the people and times come to life for the reader.

Jane Hoxie Maxson was one of the founders of the Maxson Family Association and has served as its secretary and historian. An inveterate collector offamily lore and memorabilia, she has patiently transcribed these remarkable diaries from her family collection, illustrating them with unique photographs. Cherry Fletcher Bamberg, editor of Rhode Island Roots, enjoyed helping her put it all together.