Membership in the distinguished Order of the First Families of North Carolina requires having an ancestor who lived in North Carolina before it became a royal colony on July 12, 1729. The work at hand - the first in a new series - describes and documents family histories of the first 200 persons named to the Order's Ancestor Roster. Undertaken with the blessings of the Order of the First Families, renowned genealogist John Brayton here establishes the origins (if known) of each ancestor, the facts of all their children's families (not just the ones through whom descent is proven), and any other accessible data to round out the family history.

Chapters include: John Alston, Sr.; William Bennett; John Drake, James Drake, John Collins; Governor William Drummond; Nathaniel Everett; The Godwin Connection (William Bridger, John Cotton, Osborne Jeffreys, Simon Jeffreys, John Speir, Col. William Whitehead); Benjamin Laker; John Mann II; Thomas Mann II; Founders of Tyrrell County (Dr. Godfrey Spruill, Henry Norman I & II, and Ann Walker); and Thomas Vinson. A full-name index, a place index, and a slave index complete this work.