Families of Western New York

A stronghold of Scotch-Irish settlement, Augusta County commands great interest among genealogists because thousands of 18th- and 19th-century families passed through it en route to the West. J. Lewis Peyton's History of Augusta County, Virginia is the standard work on the county. It is essentially a narrative account of Augusta from its aboriginal beginnings and Spotswood's discovery of the Valley of Virginia through the Civil War. Genealogists will value the book, in part, as a companion volume to such Augusta County source record collections as Lyman Chalkley's Chronicles of the Scotch-Irish Settlement in Virginia. Of greater importance to genealogists, however, are the genealogical and biographical sketches of a number pioneering Augusta County families found in the Appendix to the volume.