Colonial Anglican Church Records and African Genealogy: Hidden Parish Records of Africans and Mixed Communities in Colonial America The Canon Series Volume 5

Summary of the BookColonial Anglican Church Records and African Genealogy: Hidden Parish Records of Africans and Mixed Communities in Colonial America examines the overlooked role of Anglican parish archives in preserving the documentary history of Africans, free persons of color, and mixed communities throughout colonial America. Drawing from parish registers, vestry books, missionary correspondence, burial records, plantation chapels, and colonial administrative records, the book explores how the Church of England became deeply connected to plantation society, racial classification systems, labor administration, and colonial governance.Focusing on regions such as Virginia, South Carolina, Maryland, North Carolina, and Georgia, this volume demonstrates how Anglican records preserve valuable evidence connected to African genealogy and community formation during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The book also provides practical research methods for genealogists and historians seeking to reconstruct hidden ancestral histories through colonial church archives and related historical records.Through historical analysis and archival interpretation, this work reveals how religion, law, identity, and colonial administration intersected within the documentary foundations of early America. Read more