Every major archival source in England has been examined over the past forty years for evidence of emigrants and their families, all except one--Loyalists' claims submitted to the American Claims Commission between 1765 and 1799 for compensation for loss of land and property as a result of action taken against Loyalists before, during, and after the Revolutionary War. The Claims Commission examined claimants and witnesses and amassed a mountain of documentary materials which included applications, correspondence, depositions, affidavits, and legal transcripts which now form record class AO 13 (providing the raw material for most of the information in this book) and AO 12 (comprising 146 bound volumes which summarize the documentation already received). In this book, cases are grouped together as far as practicable according to the name and normal residence of the person in whose right each claim was rendered. This has the benefit of grouping together under the name of a sole original landowner the applications of many descendants who may have submitted claims under different names. All 5,800 individual claims--the entire contents of the papers of the Claims Commission that form record classes AO 12 and AO 13 at the Public Record Office--are abstracted in this comprehensive publication.
