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1607 Jamestown, VA
1620 Mayflower, Plymoth MA
1624 Hudson River Settlement
"Founders of Early American Families" (1) states:

The greatest period of early migration was the decade of the 1630's when so many English came to New England. The migration in a real sense began in 1630 with the arrival of the Winthrop Fleet to the Boston, Massachusetts, area. The reasons for the migration and the reasons why many New Englanders returned after the end of the 1630's have been well studied. The great migration to Virginia occurred in the 1640's.

Although Africans came or were brought to the colonies during this period, the only persons so far found to have established traceable families were Europeans. The nationality of a great many Europeans is known. It is possible on the basis of available evidence to make a tentative attribution of nationality for most of the rest. If we accept these tentative attributions and assume that they are proportionately accurate in relation to the entire population, then the three colonial powers which fostered settlements were disproportionately represented: England-91%, Holland-6%, All others-3%. It is apparent that most of the Swedes left after the Swedish Colony on the Delaware was conquered by the Dutch.

...

The non-Dutch colonists from the Continent included the Swedes. The Swedes, bringing Finns with them, settled along the Delaware River beginning in 1638.

How many descendants would an early colonist have? Donald Lines Jacobus in 1930 wrote on the growth of a colonial family. He studied the descendants of John Thomas who was in New Haven in 1640, compared his study with other studies, and drew some conclusions. A colonist who came over between 1620 and 1640, he felt, left in excess of 200,000 descendants. That number would be in excess of 400,000 today (1975).

(1) "Founders of Early American Families"
Emigrants from Europe 1607-1657
By Meredith B. Colket, Jr.
A.M., Litt, D., F.A.S.G., F.S.A.A.
Copy at America's First Families at linkline.com

last updated 27 Nov 2001