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Atlantic Mission

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Unique records to discover your British roots

There are excellent family history research providers like Ancestry and Findmypast but have so many records that the right ones are often buried deep beneath billions of online records which are difficult even for the seasoned genealogist to navigate. Many of these records are not fully digitised but lead to pages where the researcher has to locate the right information. Added to this, we have the problem of missing records for a significant part of the 17th century caused by the Civil war and the Commonwealth Gap. Our records are therefore an excellent way to fill in missing facts and take your story from the British Cradle to the American Dream.

Linking Two Lands

Long-forgotten projects have culminated in transcribing and digitising some of the best, most intricate, genealogical and historical documents. Transcribers on both sides of the Atlantic created a reference tool for researchers to use forever.

The Atlantic Mission allows you to connect your early American ancestors with their British parents, grandparents, cousins and more.

Research, revive and relive your Ancestral lives…

We are in the process of unifying the relevant genealogical resources, digitising some of them for the very first time. Stories of Rebels, Rogues and Romantics, the pioneers who helped to build a great country, are funnelled into digital formats to show their passage from Britain over the Atlantic. Pioneers who helped to build America but also servants, slaves and their masters from Europe and Africa. Useful records not only for Americans but also for the British who stayed behind. Like these:-

  • Agents
  • Church Officers
  • Civilians
  • Governors
  • Headrights
  • Informants
  • Law Officers
  • Mariners
  • Migrants
  • Military
  • Neighbours
  • Pilgrim Church Users
  • Pioneers
  • Prosecutors
  • Quakers
  • Royalty, Courtier or Peers
  • Servants
  • Slaves
  • Slave Owners
  • Spies
  • Transported

Atlantic Mission Highlights

Who were your British ancestors? Landowners, orphans, adventurers, soldiers, kidnapped children, convicts, merchants, persecuted pilgrims, slaves, cavaliers or apprentices? Or did they stay at home, content with their lot and this tiny archipelago full of history, outstanding buildings and beautiful, varied scenery?

Quality not Quantity

There is a broad range of data for in each record allowing users to explore each fact of the individual’s life. It is our intention to provide similar treatment of outstanding genealogy resources in the future including more pilgrim records, non-conformists, migration and probate records complementary to the other excellent resources available online.

Over 200,000 records filtered and rearranged into the following record sets. This is just the start. You can help us to introduce many more outstanding records.

As there are so many data elements to each record, they can appear in different datasets depending on what is being researched.

So far some highlights are:-

  • 27,000 Quakers and their Adversaries
  • 11,000 Crime & Punishment records
  • 117,000 British records
  • 38,000 British residences
  • 32,000 Transported
  • 84,000 Agents & Pioneers
  • 68,000 Records of Virginians with creeks and rivers as their address.

This is their story, your story, in a unique database

Drill down into our data to find out when they arrived, where they were from and why they left. Who were the Persecuted? Who were their oppressors? How was Royalty involved? Who were the planters, the masters and the servants? Who owned what and who transported whom?

The Atlantic Mission allows you to connect your early American ancestors with their British parents, grandparents, cousins and more. We are only at the start but welcome help in advancing this over time.

Rebels, Rogues and Romantics

Three main datasets: Britain, Atlantic and America work together conveniently to follow the journey over the Atlantic. This exclusive and unique database holds a unique range of records providing possible links back from early American pioneers. It shows how and why they crossed the Atlantic and what their lives were like before they left British shores. Our unique collection of 17th century records provide a bridge over the Atlantic between Britain and America to trace your ancestors’ lives before they set sail. As far as we know, parts of this database have been fully transcribed and digitised for the very first time. In that respect, this database is unique and provides a complementary tool to the mainstream family history providers.

Britain

The database shows non-conformists, where they lived and how they were treated: The Establishment, Judiciary and Law and Order.

Quakers & Adversaries27,684 records
A complete and unique collection of 17th century persecuted Quakers.
Crime & Punishment11,863 records
The offences and punishments of 17th century Quakers.
Home38,752 records
Where 17th C British residents lived in Britain, down to the smallest village.
English Origins114,015 records
List of mainly 17th century English rebels, servants, pioneers and Establishment figures.
Scottish, Irish & Welsh Origins2,898 records
List of 17th century Scottish, Irish & Welsh.

Geography

Then when possible connections are made, we find many alternative locations spread around a country about which the researcher might know little. How are we to know which of the many christening records for the target individual relate to our target? The records themselves might even provide a possible location but then we meet the next hurdle: geography. One of the reasons that the Complete Book of Emigrants edited by Coldham is rightly considered to be vital to the American genealogist of British lineage is that it contains many examples of precise origins but even this can be a hurdle too far. How many researchers would know where these locations are:- Roddorith; Widenbury; Saklesby; Kedlethorp; Chersey; and Road? These are locations given hundreds of years ago and written down only in interpretation of what has been heard from the speaker. 

These locations are corrected in the Atlantic Mission and are likely to be Rotherhithe, Southwark, Surrey; Wybunbury, Cheshire; Saxelby, Leicestershire; Kettlethorpe, Lincolnshire; Chertsey, Surrey; and Read, Burnley, Lancashire.

Where’s Kedlethorp?

Nowhere. It doesn’t exist but Kettlethorpe is small Lincolnshire village. Knowledge of the right place can open up key research possibilities, save time and can lead to significant progress being made in hunting for British origins.

We know that they are likely to be Rotherhithe, Southwark, Surrey; Wybunbury, Cheshire; Saxelby, Leicestershire; Kettlethorpe, Lincolnshire; Chertsey, Surrey; and Read, Burnley, Lancashire.

Corrected Place Names of Emigrants to America

Place Name as TranscribedCorrected Place NameCounty
Roddorith, SurryRotherhithe, SouthwarkSurrey
Widenbury, CheshireWybunburyCheshire
Stow Markitt, SuffolkStowmarketSuffolk
Saklesby, LeicsSaxelbyLeicestershire
Kedlethorp, LincsKettlethorpeLincolnshire
Chersey, SurreyChertseySurrey
Road, [Lancs]Read, BurnleyLancashire

Atlantic Highlights

This part of the database holds a unique range of records providing possible links back from early American pioneers showing how and why they crossed the Atlantic and what their lives were like before they left British shores. Our unique collection of 17th century records provide a bridge over the Atlantic between Britain and America to trace your ancestors’ lives before they set sail.

Worthy your country’s name,

You brave heroic minds,

That honour still pursue,

Whilst loit’ring hinds

Lurk here at home with shame.

Go and subdue!

Most of these did not emerge from the Atlantic on the ships that crossed that sea but – without ports in the early years – they arrived in small rowing boats powered by humble oars powered by one or two people.

The Mayflower left Plymouth, England, on 6 September 1620 and arrived at Cape Cod on 9 November 1620.
Voyages to America 22,621 records
Migrants from British Isles to America.
Transported32,175 records
British, Irish and Africans transported under Virginia land patents.
Agents & Pioneers84,171 records
Recruiters and their apprentices among the first to settle in Virginia.
Servants & Slaves1,565 records
Servants & Slaves mentioned in Land Patents
Occupations14,881 records
1,000s of 17th C occupations on both sides of the Atlantic.
Migrants & Mariners9,590 records
Mariners and passengers crossing the Atlantic.

Britons, you stay too long;

Quickly aboard bestow you,

And with a merry gale

Swell your stretch’d sail,

With vows as strong

As the winds that blow you!

Poor Lad sent to Virginia for 7 years

‘Poor lad’ Richard Nicholson of St Saviour’s parish in Southwark, London, aged 14, agreed to serve tobacconist John Williams of St George’s Southwark for seven years.

In return for exclusive service he would receive ‘Clothes, Meat, Drink, Washing and Lodging.’

Register of Servants- Richard Nicholson

Gone for Good?

Over half of those arriving in the early 17th century southern colonies were indentured servants. Most of these were under 19 years of age. They averaged 15 years of age with some as young as only six.

Many were neglected or orphans and subject to obligatory indentures granted £5 each to get to the colonies and promised 50 acres of plantation upon completion of their apprenticeship.

The demand for children became so high that they were initially advertised, cajoled and ultimately kidnapped for profit by ‘spiriters’ who held them until their ship was ready to sail.

Public backlash and King Charles II’s outrage saw to it that spiriting became illegal.

Subsequent arrangements were subject to colonial legislation such that Virginia stipulated that “Such persons as shall be imported, having no indenture or covenant, either men or women, if they be above sixteen years old shall serve four years, if under fifteen to serve till he or she shall be one and twenty years of age, and the courts to be judges of their ages.” Courts treated errant apprentices harshly, extending their indentures and granting bounties for runaways.

Most – not all – were gone for good.

Your course securely steer,

West and by south forth keep;

Rocks, lee-shores, nor shoals,

When Æolus scowls,

You need not fear,

So absolute the deep.

America

Locate your 17th century American Pioneers from their hamlets, towns, villages and cities of Britain over the Atlantic to their demise recorded in British manuscripts or over the pond to their acres or masters’ homes; and the nearest river and creek.

Bridging the genealogical gap between America and Britain is not an easy task and depends on simple christening, marriage and burial records that often yield no critical confirmatory information.  The most difficult part is to determine which part of Britain your ancestor was from. Locate your 17th century American Pioneers from their hamlets, towns, villages and cities of Britain over the Atlantic to their acres or masters’ homes to the nearest rover and creek. This is their story, your story, in a unique database collection. Drill down into our data to find out when they arrived, where they were from and why they left. Who were the Persecuted? Who were their oppressors? How was Royalty involved? Who were the planters, the masters and the servants. Who owned what and who transported whom?

Potomac River, from Harpers Ferry, West Virginia

And cheerfully at sea

Success you still entice

To get the pearl and gold,

And ours to hold

Virginia, Earth’s only paradise!

Michael Drayton Ode to the Virginian Voyage 1606
as included in the History of Virginian Company of London

Main Collections

  • Baptisms
  • Births derived from records
  • Births – Early Americans
  • Burial
  • Crime & Punishment
  • Enforcement
  • England Parish Records
  • Espionage
  • Patent
  • Persecution
  • Prosecution
  • Quaker Account
  • Servants and Slaves
  • Virginians
  • Voyages

America Highlights

Patents77,973 records
Virginian land patents and grants with names, dates and locations.
Headrights6,378 records
The names of patent holders/ headrights in America.
Virginians8,424 records
Virginian home and land addresses to the nearest neighbour and creek.
Creeks21,104 records
Those associated with Virginian creeks through residence or patent.
Rivers47,614 records
Those associated with Virginian rivers through residence or patent.
Virginian Counties74,408 records
Individuals grouped by Virginian counties.
Caribbean1,297 records
List of early Caribbean migrants.
Old buildings in Plymouth plantation at Plymouth, MA
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