A standard work on royal genealogy, this collection contains nearly 200 pedigrees showing the lineal descent of hundreds of American families from the kings of England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and France. The data derives from authoritative reference works, from family histories, and from manuscript pedigrees held in both public and private repositories. The indexes contain references to upwards of 3,000 surnames, many with multiple entries. One need only trace a surname through a lineage to connect with the Blood Royal. (Earlier editions of this work are not necessarily superseded by the seventh edition, but the seventh is held to be the most authoritative, and is therefore the most popular.)
“People who take God seriously will not remain silent about their faith. They will often disagree about doctrine or policy, but they won’t be quiet. They can’t be. They’ll act on what they believe, sometimes at the cost of their reputations and careers. Obviously the common good demands a respect for other people with different beliefs and a willingness to compromise whenever possible. But for Catholics, the common good can never mean muting themselves in public debate on foundational issues of human dignity. Christian faith is always personal but never private. This is why any notion of tolerance that tries to reduce faith to private idiosyncrasy, or a set of opinions that we can indulge at home but need to be quiet about in public, will always fail.” —From the Introduction Few topics in recent years have ignited as much public debate as the balance between religion and politics. Does religious thought have any place in political discourse? Do religious believers have the right to turn their values into political action? What does it truly mean to have a separation of church and state? The very heart of these important questions is here addressed by one of the leading voices on the topic, Charles J. Chaput, Archbishop of Philadelphia. While American society has ample room for believers and nonbelievers alike, Chaput argues, our public life must be considered within the context of its Christian roots. American democracy does not ask its citizens to put aside their deeply held moral and religious beliefs for the sake of public policy. In fact, it requires exactly the opposite. As the nation’s founders knew very well, people are fallible. The majority of voters, as history has shown again and again, can be uninformed, misinformed, biased, or simply wrong. Thus, to survive, American democracy depends on an engaged citizenry —people of character, including religious believers, fighting for their beliefs in the public square—respectfully but vigorously, and without apology. Anything less is bad citizenship and a form of theft from the nation’s health. Or as the author suggests: Good manners are not an excuse for political cowardice. American Catholics and other persons of goodwill are part of a struggle for our nation’s future, says Charles J. Chaput. Our choices, including our political choices, matter. Catholics need to take an active, vocal, and morally consistent role in public debate. We can’t claim to personally believe in the sanctity of the human person, and then act in our public policies as if we don’t. We can’t separate our private convictions from our public actions without diminishing both. In the words of the author, “How we act works backward on our convictions, making them stronger or smothering them under a snowfall of alibis.” Vivid, provocative, clear, and compelling, Render unto Caesar is a call to American Catholics to serve the highest ideals of their nation by first living their Catholic faith deeply, authentically.
In this comprehensive history, Fr. Charles Connor details the life of Catholics in the American Colonies. It’s a tale that begins with the flight of English Catholics to religious freedom in Maryland in 1634, and continues through the post-Revolutionary period, by which time the constitutions of all but four of the first 13 states contained harsh anti-Catholic provisions. Catholic readers will be proud to learn from these pages that despite almost two centuries of ever-more-intense religious persecutions and even harsher legal prohibitions, American Catholics in the colonies simply refused not to be Catholic. These pages show that from the Jesuit manor houses that planted the seeds of faith in Maryland to the solitary missionary priests who evangelized the New York regions, Catholics kept the faith . . . even unto death. Pioneer Priests and Makeshift Altars is indispensable reading for souls interested in the deep roots of Catholicism in America, and in the holy courage of scores of Catholics who kept remorseless forces from snuffing their faith out. Among other things, you’ll learn here: Why Catholics left the old world for America: their reasons were often not religiousThe tale of The Ark and The Dove that carried the first settlers to MarylandThe Puritan ascendancy that too soon outlawed Catholicism in MarylandThe sole Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence: Can you name him?The surprisingly powerful anti-Catholic sentiments of most of the Founding FathersThe friend of George Washington who became the first Bishop of BaltimoreThe great Catholic post-Revolutionary War migration from Maryland to KentuckyThe cosmopolitan colony whose robust religious liberty was more favorable that Maryland to CatholicismThe Quaker/Catholic alliance that promoted both religionsThe role of persecuted Catholics in the Revolutionary WarWhy, in that War, many Catholics favored the anti-Catholic BritishThe French Jesuits who evangelized New York and its frontier areas, and the saints who were martyred thereThe Iroquois maiden who converted and became a saintThe years in which, throughout the colonies, Catholics became an endangered speciesPlus: much more to acquaint you with the proud heritage of Catholics in the earliest years of our nation!
Most Americans give little thought to their county's size, population, when it was created, or how its name came about. But such information can be very helpful to anyone, particularly researchers and genealogists, investigating local or state history. Drawing on information obtained from the 2010 Census, the 6th edition of The American Counties provides up-to-date data on each county's: -land area -population -county seat -date of creation -name origin -dates of governmental organization, elimination, and re-creation This edition includes information on counties created since the previous edition was published as well as more precise "date of creation" details for many colonial counties. If a county is named for a geographical feature--river, mountain, lake, etc.--the origin of the name and the meaning of any Indian or foreign words is provided. For those counties that were named after a specific individual, a brief sketch of the person's life is provided, including updated biographical information from previous editions. The Introduction has been expanded to address such topics as counties with similar names, persons who have more than one namesake county, the paucity of counties named for women, the practice of creating counties in uninhabited regions, and legislators naming counties for each other. At the request of many readers, the 6th edition contains new appendices ranking all counties nationally by population and area, as well as an appendix listing counties that have been eliminated. Containing information on all 3,143 counties and county equivalents (independent cities, parishes, boroughs, etc.) in the United States, the 6th edition of The American Counties is an essential resource for researchers looking for basic information on counties in the United States.
Sit back, dear reader, and open your mind to a world you may have once dismissed with an utterance of "Who cares!?" whenever the word "trivia" was mentioned... This work is not a modest collection of trivial data filched from an Internet search, since information of this type is not altogether accurate. Nor does it lean on circumstances thought true for years, yet found unreliable under tight examination... Rather, the author has thoroughly researched each piece of trivia enclosed within these pages, sourcing many with dates, records, photos and period artwork for the most accurate of obtainable facts... Whether or not you respect that awesome word "tivia" after reading this little volume, wouldn't it be nice to take home a lot of extra money because you knew something someone else didn't?
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