10 the east of New York City lies Long Island, stretching 120 T miles out into the Atlantic Ocean. Starting in the 1630s Dutch settlers crossed the East River to farm the western end of the island. A few years later colonists began sailing down from New England to found towns on Long Island, halting only when they met Dutch settlements.

The result was that the eastern two-thirds of Long Island (present-day Suffolk County) had a New England identity, based on geographical proximity and on ancestry, while Kings County had a Dutch identity, and Queens County had both Dutch and New England characteristics. These three counties were created in 1683 from the three "ridings" established by the British in 1665. Prior to the British takeover of New York from the Dutch in 1664, some of the eastern Long Island towns had been part of the Connecticut or New Haven colonies.

Long Island is shaped like a fish with its jaws (or its tail fins) open around Shelter Island and Gardiner's Island.

The boundary changes over the centuries have not been substantial, the main one being that in 1898 half of Queens County (Flushing, Jamaica and Newtown) was absorbed into New York City, while the remainder became Nassau County. (The "Island of Nassau" had been an old name for Long Island.)

In 1725 Long Island comprised about 38% of the total popula. tion of New York. This means that if a line can be traced back that far in New York, there is a good chance of finding Long Island ancestry. And Long Island was an important source in the spread of population in the eighteenth century, especially in the Hudson River Valley and New Jersey.

When I was asked to choose the articles for this compilation, I accepted without hesitation as I knew there was little published on Long Island families. And what is available is frequently second-rate and based on tradition, for conventional Long Island genealogical research can be most difficult. Although many Long Island settlers came from New England, the good record-keeping practices of New England apparently did not come with them. Long Island towns did not keep vital records on a regular basis, and some early church records have not survived. (For information on Long Island sources and genealogical research, see Herbert F. Seversmith and Kenn Stryker-Rodda, Long Island Genealogical Source Material (A Bibli-ography) (Washington, D.C.: National Genealogical Society Special Publication No. 24, 1962); Kenn Stryker-Rodda, "Long Island," in Genealogical Research: Methods and Sources, Vol. I, rev. ed (Washington, D.C.: The American Society of Genealogists, 1980).

177-188; and Henry B. Hoff,

"Genealogical Research on Long

Island," Tree Talks, 24 ( 1984) : 67-79.)

However, the fact that Long Island settlers came from New England is helpful in itself. Many are mentioned in James Savage's Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England* (* vOlS., 1860-62), Clarence Almon Torrey's New England Marriages Prior to 1700 (1985) (available on microfilm from The New England Historic Genealogical Society and in book form from the Genealogical Publishing Company), Jobn O. Austin's Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island* (1887), and Donald L. Jacobus's History and Genealogy of the Families of Old Fairfield* (2 vols., 1930-32) and his Families of Ancient New Haven* (8 vols., 1922-

32). Articles in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register have included Long Island branches of New England families, and a few articles have dealt exclusively with Long Island….