This extensive volume covers the direct ancestral lines of Thomas’s and Delinda’s grandparents. The four paternal families left England for New England and New York. Meanwhile, the four maternal families eventually lived in nearly every southeastern state. The marriage between the north and south makes for a genuinely all-American story. 

Three of Thomas’s ancestors arrived during the Great Migration to New England while the fourth arrived in the midst of the Civil War. More complete documentation adds to what has been published about these families and extends the Wood’s probable English lineage. Three of Delinda’s presumed English ancestors migrated during the late 1600s, and the German branch arrived the following century. While their more frequent and distant domestic migrations made these southern families difficult to trace, thorough research supports proposed lineages for each. 

Features for every chapter highlight notable community leaders, multi-generational occupations, and cross-country migration stories. Read about the chaplain of Birmingham, a medal-winning nurse, Forest of Dean woodmen, Atlantic mariners, Shreveport businessmen, tables that traveled, and fraternal division resulting from the Civil War.   

By Kyle Hurst

Published by NEHGS in May 2024

8-1/4 x 10 -1/4 hardcover, 752 pages, illustrated