Ode to Melinde

I've had the great pleasure of working with Melinde Lutz Sanborn, F.A.S.G., for many years.  Her latest book is out:

The Ancestry of Eva Belle Kempton 1878-1908, Part II: The Ancestry of Amanda Spiller 1823-1873 by Dean Crawford Smith, edited by Melinde Lutz Sanborn (Boston, Mass.: NEHGS, 2008).

This book is the sixth and final volume comprising all of the late Dean Crawford Smith’s maternal ancestry.  Beginning in 1990, Smith and Sanborn have published these six volumes containing 142 New England families, many with English origins and original research found nowhere else.  This series is an exemplar of the all-my-ancestor format and is the best of its kind published in the last fifty years.  The immigrants come to early Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Maine, with all the lines descending to Smith’s mother, a native of New Hampshire.  Each family follows a single line of descent, however each generation is presented completely, citing to original sources in all cases.  Photographs of gravestones, portraits, and signatures nicely add to the text.  Each work is separately indexed. 

In all cases, the eponymous title family is given special attention with additional notes for further research.  The other titles are (all published by the NEHGS):

 The Ancestry of Samuel Blanchard Ordway 1844-1916 (1990) [mostly Essex Co., Mass.]

 The Ancestry of Emily Jane Angell 1844-1910 (1992) [mostly R.I., Conn. and early Scots-Irish families of N.H.]

 The Ancestry of Eva Belle Kempton, Part I: Warren Francis Kempton 1817-1879  (1996) [Middlesex and Plymouth Cos. Mass.]

 The Ancestry of Eva Belle Kempton, Part III: Henry Clay Bartlett 1832-1892 (2004) [mostly Middlesex Co. Mass.]

 The Ancestry of Eva Belle Kempton, Part IV: Linda Anna Powers 1839-1879 (2000) [Mass.]