Blog Some Genealogy

The final third volume of the fourth edition of “Adventurers of Purse and Person” was released this spring. This is a “must have” set of books for Virginia genealogists.

This is the third and final volume of the legendary Adventurers of Purse and Person, a monumental compendium of genealogies of the founders of Virginia during the formative period 1607-1625 and the culmination of more than twenty-five years of research by the widely respected Virginia genealogist John Frederick Dorman. Suffice it to say, this fourth edition brings together the results of all the most recent scholarship on these families, expanding the limits of what is presently known and opening up possibilities for research beyond the sixth generation.

The concluding volume contains accounts of forty-six pre-1625 Virginia settlers or members of the Virginia Company of London whose families later came to the colony, with thirty-six of them traced to the sixth generation. Individuals ranging from R-Z (Reynolds to Zouche) identified in the work must have been resident in Virginia during the period 1607-1624/25 or members of the Virginia Company of London in order to be designated “adventurers,” and it is their descendants alone who qualify for membership in one of the most distinguished hereditary societies in America, the Order of First Families of Virginia. Adventurers of Purse and Person is their story, a collection of genealogies of all adventurers with proven descents into the sixth generation.

Adventurers of Purse and Person: Volume One of this new fourth edition includes families A through F. The second volume covers Virginia’s founding families alphabetically from G through P. Volume One covers the following families: Andrews, Bagwell, Baley-Cocke, Barkham-Jenings, Barne, Bates, Bayly, Beheathland, Bennett (Edward), Bennett (Samuel), Bennett-Chapman, Bernard, Bibby, Bickley, Bland, Boyce, Boyle-Mountney, Branch, Buck, Burwell, Bush, Calthorpe, Calvert, Carsley, Carter, Chaplaine, Chew, Chisman, Claiborne, Clay, Clements, Cobb, Codrington, Cole, Cope, Cox, Crew, Croshaw, Crump, Curtis, Davis, Dawson, Delk, Digges, Edloe, Epes, Evelyn, Farrar, Fisher, Fleet, Flood, Freeman.

Volume One covers a total of fifty-two families that were established in Virginia prior to 1625 or members of the Virginia Company whose descendants later came to Virginia. Of these fifty-two families, seven have not been researched in previous editions. Thirty-six are traced to the sixth generation.