This ambitious work chronicles 250 years of the Cromartie family genealogical history. Included in the index of nearly fifty thousand names are the current generations, and all of those preceding, which trace ancestry to our family patriarch, William Cromartie, who was born in 1731 in Orkney, Scotland, and his second wife, Ruhamah Doane, who was born in 1745. Arriving in America in 1758, William Cromartie settled and developed a plantation on South River, a tributary of the Cape Fear near Wilmington, North Carolina. On April 2, 1766, William married Ruhamah Doane, a fifth-generation descendant of a Mayflower passenger to Plymouth, Stephen Hopkins. If Cromartie is your last name or that of one of your blood relatives, it is almost certain that you can trace your ancestry to one of the thirteen children of William Cromartie , his first wife, and Ruhamah Doane, who became the founding ancestors of our Cromartie family in America: William Jr., James, Thankful, Elizabeth, Hannah Ruhamah, Alexander, John, Margaret Nancy, Mary, Catherine, Jean, Peter Patrick, and Ann E. Cromartie. These four volumes hold an account of the descent of each of these first-generation Cromarties in America, including personal anecdotes, photographs, copies of family bibles, wills, and other historical documents. Their pages hold a personal record of our ancestors and where you belong in the Cromartie family tree.

Abraham Illges (born 1830), a son of Paul Illges and Elizabeth Kready, was born in Pennsylvania. He married Mary Lou Barnett (born 1857), a daughter of William Barnett, Jr., and Lucy Batt Barnett, in 1880. They had eight children. Many descendants live in the southern United States.

Obadiah Seward (b. ca.1630) is found recorded in Milford, Connecticut in 1660. He married Bethyah Hawes at Milford. His great grandson, James Sr. (1732-1808) was the son of Obadiah III of Brookhaven, Long Island, New York. James settled at Fairfield, Butler County, Ohio. A descendant, George Chester Seward (b. 1910) married Carroll Francis McKay (1913-1991) in 1936 of which additional information is given under "We remember Carroll". Several generations of ancestors and descendants are given. Family members lived in Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, New York and elsewhere.

Chiefly family group sheets.

Paul Hugo Ritter was born April 12, 1840 in Rottweil, Germany. His parents were Michael Carolus Ritter (1804-1886) and Louise Hetzinger (1810-1871). He immigrated to the United States in 1863. He married Emma Katherine Foebel (1843-1908) in 1865 in Vinncennes, Knox County, Indiana. They had thirteen children. Paul died in 1903 in Cumberland Maryland. Descendants and relatives lived in Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and elsewhere.

Joseph Wigton (1779-ca. 1859) was born in Northern Ireland, the son of William and Martha Wallace Wigton. He immigrated to America in 1796 and lived for awhile with his sister, Mrs. James Downey of Rushville, Fairfield County, Ohio. He and his wife, Sarah Porter, were the parents of eight children, 1808-1825, born in Fairfield, Muskingum, and Perry Counties, Ohio. Descendants listed lived in Ohio and elsewhere.

John Browne (1584-1662) married Dorothy Beauchamp (?) in 1611, and immigrated about 1630 from England to Plymouth, Massachusetts, moving to Taunton about 1637/1640, and later to what became Rehoboth, Massa- chusetts. Descendants and relatives--arranged in alphabetical order by surname, and chronologically thereunder--lived in New England, New York, Michigan, Illinois, California and elsewhere.