The Washingtons. Volume 3

Book excerpt: This Royal Descents supplement is an outgrowth of the author’s multi-volume family history of the “Presidential Branch” of the Washingtons. That work collects the descendants of the immigrant John Washington who settled in Westmoreland Co., Va., in 1657, married Anne Pope, and became the great-grandfather of President George Washington. The Royal Descents traces the ancestry of the early Virginia members of this “Presidential Branch” back in time to the aristocracy and nobility of England and continental Europe, including the Plantagenet dynasty, William the Conqueror, Alfred the Great, Charles Martel, and Charlemagne. ADVANCE PRAISE for The Washingtons: A Family History “I am convinced that your work will be of wide interest to historians and academics as well as members of the Washington family itself. Although the surname Washington is perhaps the best known in American history and much has been written about the Washington family for well over a century, it is surprising that no comprehensive family history has been published. Justin M. Glenn’s The Washingtons: A Family History finally fills this void for the branch to which General and President George Washington belonged, identifying some 63,000 descendants. This is truly a family history, not a mere tabulation of names and dates, providing biographical accounts of many of the descendants of John Washington who settled in Westmoreland County, Virginia, in 1657. . . . Each individual section is followed by extensive listings of published and manuscript sources supporting the information presented and errors of identification in previous publications are commented upon as appropriate.” John Frederick Dorman, editor of The Virginia Genealogist (1957-2006) and author of Adventurers of Purse and Person “Decades of reviewing Civil War books have left me surprised and delighted when someone applies exhaustive diligence to a topic not readily accessible. Dr. Glenn surely meets that standard with the meticulous research that unveils the Washington family in gratifying detail—many of them Confederates of interest and importance.” Robert K. Krick, author of The Smoothbore Volley that Doomed the Confederacy and Stonewall Jackson at Cedar Mountain