Author Description

The fourth and concluding volume in Marston Watson's "Americans of Royal and Noble Ancestry" series is by far the most ambitious. Almost double the size of the second longest book in the series, the Pelham-Avery-West volume traces a full nine generations of descendants of Thomas West, 2nd Baron De La Warr. Unlike the earlier books, the progeny identified in Volume Four are associated not only with New England but with four distinct colonial regions: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Long Island (and later greater New York), and Virginia (with expansion to the Deep South). Finally, and unexpectedly, Thomas West descendants' may be able to claim a kinship to England's most notorious king, Henry VIII (1491-1547).