The Great Migration
The Great Migration is the standard modern reference on the English men and women who settled New England in its first decades. Directed by Robert Charles Anderson and published by the New England Historic Genealogical Society (American Ancestors) in Boston, the Great Migration Project set out to write a careful, fully sourced biographical sketch of every settler who arrived in New England between 1620 and 1640.
The Series
The first series, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620–1633, covers the earliest arrivals, the Mayflower passengers among them; its sketches include Edward Doty and his master, Stephen Hopkins. The main series, The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634–1635, then takes up the later arrivals. Anderson and his team worked from the surviving records themselves — town, church, court, land, and probate records — and said plainly where the evidence runs out.
Why the Society Cites It
Older Doty family histories repeat claims that no record supports. Anderson’s sketches separate what is documented from what is only tradition, so where The Great Migration has weighed a question, this site follows it — and where our pages differ from it, they say so and show the source. It is the first authority checked for the Society’s Edward Doty, Stephen Hopkins, and grandchildren pages.
The Society’s Citations
- Anderson, The Great Migration, “Edward Doty,” p. 575 — cited on the pages of Thomas Doty’s children.
- Anderson, The Great Migration Begins (Edward Doty sketch) — cited on the pages of Joseph Doty’s children.
- Anderson, The Great Migration, Stephen Hopkins biography (American Ancestors) — cited on the Stephen Hopkins and Constance Hopkins pages.