ALSO PRESENT...STORIES OF AN AMERICAN FAMILY


In Also Present...Stories of an American Family, the author examines the causes and consequences of upheaval and war in 16th and 17th century Europe, and the subsequent migration of its persecuted to the New World. Embedded in this larger picture is the story of her own family, and how they came to settle in New Netherland, Nova Caesaria (New Jersey), Massachusetts, Penn's Colony, and the hotly disputed northeast corner of what is now Pennsylvania, claimed at the time by both Connecticut and Pennsylvania.

The book takes us from the strife-ridden countries of France, Belgium, The Netherlands, England, Germany, and Switzerland to the unsettled shores of the New World. Along the way, it examines events and people who made history, but are footnotes in the bigger story of American's beginnings.

For many, the author's family included, the migration consisted of, "...persons whose courage overreached their means." In spite of this, the settlers persevered in the face of constant danger and disaster to forge a nation and a culture.

In addition to this, the author includes vignettes about a colorful Royal Governor, the Klondike Gold Rush, would-be genealogists, American mythology, and comments about what the nation was like at its beginnings.

Also Present... is a departure from most texts detailing the settling of American in that it personalizes those events and explores the side streets of history. Extensively researched, and noted by source, the author is sometimes able to give several versions of the same story, leaving to the reader the decision as to which one is true. You can join the author in her search to understand obscure references (such as the Keithian Controversy, the Great Runaway, and the Smithsonian foul-up), and learn how these little-known disputes carried great weight in their own time. Where Fitzgerald is uncertain about the true facts or the proclaimed ancestry, she is quick to note it, and cheerfully admits that there are gaps to be filled in the family line.

This is no tome of "A begat B, etc.", nor is it a history book containing dry facts and dates. Rather, it is a look at how national and world events swept up the branches of her family and landed them in the wilderness soon to become America.