Ambrose Meador (d.ca.1661/1663) immigrated from England to Warrisquicke (later Isle of Wight) County, Virginia before 1636, and moved about 1649 to Lancaster County, Virginia. Descendants lived in Virginia and elsewhere.
Thomas Meader Sr. (d.1664) immigrated from England to Rappahannock County, Virginia, and was the father of Thomas Meader Jr. and the grandfather of John Meader. Subsequent descendants (chiefly spelling the surname Meador) and relatives lived in Virginia, Tennessee, Ken- tucky, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Oregon, California and else- where.
This is the definitive work on Americans taken prisoner during the Revolutionary War. The bulk of the book is devoted to personal accounts, many of them moving, of the conditions endured by U.S. prisoners at the hands of the British, as preserved in journals or diaries kept by physicians, ships' captains, and the prisoners themselves. Of greater genealogical interest is the alphabetical list of 8,000 men who were imprisoned on the British vessel The Old Jersey, which the author copied from the papers of the British War Department and incorporated in the appendix to the work. Also included is a Muster Roll of Captain Abraham Shepherd's Company of Virginia Riflemen and a section on soldiers of the Pennsylvania Flying Camp who perished in prison, 1776-1777.
This ten-year supplement lists 10,000 titles acquired by the Library of Congress since 1976--this extraordinary number reflecting the phenomenal growth of interest in genealogy since the publication of Roots. An index of secondary names contains about 8,500 entries, and a geographical index lists family locations when mentioned.