NOTABLE SOUTHERN FAMILIES, Vols. I-VI

Orig. pub. Chattanooga and Bristol 1918-1933. Reprinted 1974. Print on Demand Edition 2012. Six volumes, 2,162 pp., illus.
Available by individual volume.

Begun in 1918 and not completed until 1933, Notable Southern Families is a collection of family histories touching upon many thousands of people of English, Scotch-Irish, and Huguenot stock, the three major groups of settlers in the Southern states, who emigrated first into Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Tennessee and then throughout the South. In almost every instance family lines begin with the earliest settlers in America and are brought down to the dates of publication. The compilers developed the lines after careful consideration of hundreds of histories, court records, family documents, family Bibles, and family authorities. The Colonial period, Revolutionary War, War of 1812, and Civil War record of each family is set forth succinctly. Each genealogy is meticulously developed giving all names in both collateral and direct lines of descent, dates and places of birth, marriage, and death, places of residence, and other items of genealogical significance. In the preparation of this work, Miss Armstrong recruited the services of a large group of specialists and, in some instances, published their findings in their entirety. She collaborated with Janie Preston Collup French in the case of Volume Five (The Crockett Family) and Mrs. French contributed the entire contents of Volume Six (The Doak Family). When we first reprinted this set in 1974, The Genealogical Quarterly (London) spoke of it as "the most important single contribution to American genealogy of the 20th Century." Certainly, the work includes so many names and families that it has proved to be a product of enduring reference value and has been called "the spine of Southern genealogy."