For the better part of the last year and a half, I’ve spent uncountable hours taking a new look at the many early colonial New England families perched in my family tree.

These are families for whom much of the research had been done long before I came along – some of it in the 1800s.

Although paper versions of genealogical journals, magazines, newsletters and even books are becoming more rare, there has been a mountain of genealogical research published, particularly about New England settlers,  since I began researching in 1979.

How can we locate all these new books and articles?

Martin E. Hollick has come to the rescue! New Englanders in the 1600s might not catch your eye if you are looking for information about specific people and families.

However, the complete title tells it all: New Englanders in the 1600s: A Guide to Genealogical Research Published Between 1980 and 2010.

Now, that caught my eye!

This is a fabulous book that everyone who is seriously – and by seriously I mean doing their own original research, not cutting and pasting information found online – should have on his/her reference book shelf.

The format is simple. Surnames are entered in ABC order, with given names added. There is a key to the source abbreviations in the entries at the beginning of the book, making it very simple to determine where the published information can be found.

Sometimes, it is in a book, while other times, it is a scholarly genealogy magazine or journal. In either case, the reader still needs to locate a repository to access the information, but identifying what has been published about who has been done for us by Mr. Hollick.

Here’s an example of one entry:

Crosby, Thomas, b. ca. 1575, d. Rowley, Mass., May 1661. Dancing, pp. 285-312; Crosby I:13-36, including English origins; wife of Simon2, Anna (Brigham)’s ancestry at Crosby I:1-4; descendants of Timothy7 at Crosby I:75-205, II: 206-340.

The key tells me Crosby and Dancing refer to two books by Paul W. Prindle and Susan E. Keats, respectively, with full bibliographic sourcing.

New Englanders in the 1600s: A Guide to Genealogical Research Published Between 1980 and 2010, Expanded Edition was published in 2012 by the New England Historic Genealogical Society.

Check the website for current availability. Copies can also be purchased online at everyone’s favorite website. Prices vary between $20-$25 for the reasonably priced copies.