Over the years I collected a vast amount of old colonial records dating from the first voyage of settlers who came over with James Edward Oglethorpe. Most of my material came from Colonial Records of Georgia by Candler. You might be interested to know the reason that Oglethorpe was connected with the 22 Trustees who ventured to raise silk in the colony. Oglethorpe had an artist friend who was a popular and successful architect who was put into prison for failure to pay his debts. He was forced to share a cell with a man who had the dreaded disease of smallpox. Oglethorpe visited him in jail and was shocked when his young friend died of smallpox. He then began a personal campaign against people being jailed for non-payment of debts and wrote and distributed a number of articles to local newspapers around London. The Trustees convinced him to join their group in the capacity of its founder, and later, as a general. Candler collected all of the correspondence Oglethorpe and others had with the trustees, as well as their records. Oglethorpe had the idea that if they took the poor citizens off the street and sent them to the new colony, they would become good citizens. To this end, the Trustees interviewed each applicant to learn what they could contribute to the growth of a stable economy. Some of the applicants came from Fleetwood Prison in London.
I was interested in learning the origin of the first shiploads of emigrants, and what happened to them in the colony. Candler provided volumes of records, and I dug in. The project was enlarged as I discovered that one of my own ancestors, Ann Harris, widow, was a merchant at the fort on St. Simon’s Island. In the process, I learned the identity of her husband who was apparently killed in his capacity as a soldier at the fort soon after they arrived in the colony, the name of her one son, and her parents. To this end, I wrote a book, Colonial Georgians, which went online on Georgia Pioneers.com in the Colonial Section. I do so hope that this book will resolved a lot of peoples family histories during the time that Oglethorpe was in Georgia (fifteen years).
Also, included in the Colonial Section of Georgia Pioneers.com from these voluminous volumes are Deaths, 1741-1799, 1754 and 1759 Land Grants, 1743 Debts, Names of Indentured Servants, Marriages, Orphans, Parish Boundaries, Public Relief during 1741-7150, Names of those who Quit the Colony, Regiment of Rangers commanded by General James Oglethorpe, Biographical Sketches of Delegates from Georgia to the Continental Congress, Names of Traders with Creek Indian, Georgia and Georgians by Lucian Lamar Knight, Vols. 1-3.
Several immigration lists were found, along with the passports and passenger lists from the Ann (1733), The Charles (1739), The Purisburg (1734), The Prince (1734), the Prince of Wales (1736), Names of Males, Saltzburgers who settled Georgia 1734-1741, and a name list of emigrants, passports issued by the Governors of Georgia 1785-1829 (they needed a passport to travel through Indian country).
The towns as they were developed provided additional data, viz:
Darien
Ebenezer
Frederica
Savannah
Religious Groups:
Jews in Georgia
Saltzburgers and their descendants
Moravians in Georgia
Highlanders in Georgia
The Darien Scheme
Addition works to assist the researcher.
The Scots Peerage, Woods Edition of St. Robert Douglas’ Peerage of Scotland, Vol. 1-9
Scottish Heraldry made easy
A History of the Highlands, and of the Highland Clans, Vols. 1-4
Ferguson Family of Scotland and America
The Scot Abroad
The Scot in America
The Scotch-Irish in America
Scottish Clans from the Highlands: Buchanan, Cameron, Campbell, Argyll, Campbell (Breadabane Campbell), Colquohoun, Farquharson, Forbes, Grant, Gunn, Lamond, MacAllister, MacAulaey, MacDonnell of Glengarry, MacDougall, MacDougald Campbell of Craignish, MacFarlane, MacGillivray, MacGregor, Mackay of Scotland to Danien, Georgia, Mackay, MacKenzie: the Landed Gentry by Burke; MacKenzie, Macintosh, Maclachlan, Maclaurin or Maclaren, Mackintosh, MacLean, MacLeod, MacMillan, MacNab, MacNaughton, MacNeill, MacNichol, MacPherson, MacQuarie, MacRae, Mathieson, Munro of Foulis, Robertson, Ross, Shaw, Soil Alpine, Sutherland, Urquhart
Irish Records
Irish Wills and Estates
Register of Wills and Inventories of the Diocese of Dublin
Ireland
The Peerage of Ireland
Irish Landlords, Landowners, Emigration Records
The Landlords and Tenants in Ireland
Peasant Proprietary in Ireland
The Irish Landed Gentry
Great Landowners of Great Britain and Ireland
Irish Emigration and Tenure of Land
Historical Notes of the Irish
Irish in SC, GA, AL, LA, TN
Ulster Plantation
Irish Marriages