Source:Savage, James. Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England

  Featured Page: Week of April 13, 2008

Overview

Extremely important dictionary reference of European settlers in New England, updates Farmer's Register.

Usage Tips

• See the preface for the scope of Savage's project - he endeavored to cover all the settlers prior to 1692, but he also narrowed the descendants of those who came earlier by not following beyond their grandchildren.

• Savage is well-respected but not infallible. Errors such as confusing men of the same name or repeating theories debunked since the 1860 publishing date are present. A survey of defects known to the WeRelate community can be obtained from the WeRelate transcription of Savage, by examining the list of pages that link to the defect marker template.

• This is a multiple volume set where the pages are discretely numbered within each volume ("pg 123" is not sufficient). A useful citation must include volume and page information (ideally - using the {{savagepg|vol|pg}} template - see tip on WeRelate transcription), and should probably also include a sufficient quotation to indicate exactly what on the page is being cited.

• The WeRelate transcription of Savage was created to address difficulties in using other electronic forms of Savage to create proper citations (it maintains the line and page organization of the original work, as updated by Dr. Robert Kraft). The best way to cite a page is to use the {{savagepg|vol|page}} template, which will yield a visible page reference that is also an active link to the indicated page in the transcription.

• Female Index - Independently compiled and published in 2008, indexes the full names of all females found in Savage's volumes.

• Dexter's 1884 "Cross-Index" (also [1]) - a surname only index of all the names in the four Savage volumes (and thus not especially useful for common names). This can also be found at the Internet Archive. Probably more immediately useful, however, is the surname index section of the WeRelate Transcript.

• The transcription which previously existed on the USGenNet site has been removed; however, that content remains available on the Wayback Machine portion of the Internet Archive as of 25 August 2024.

Examples

• Judge John Tuttle
• William Brewster
• Thomas Arnold