Each periodical, through its editor and/or sponsoring organization, chooses the areas in which they will publish. Those decisions determine how much space the periodical will devote to certain topics. A quarterly journal published by a county society in Arkansas will likely not publish much information about immigrants. Few immigrants settled in that state, so most readers would not be interested in such information. On the other hand, a periodical whose focus is on Colonial American families cannot help but discuss immigrants, since identification of the immigrant is the chief goal of most Colonial Era researchers.

County-sponsored publications typically publish transcripts or abstracts of local records, and typically the only local records that directly identify immigrants are naturalization records. Of course, these seldom exist in the Colonial Era, but for later time periods, such articles, interspersed between many records having nothing to do with immigrants, can be a valuable source.

There are a handful of periodicals which place a greater emphasis on immigrants and their records than most others. Some of the most significant include:

The American Genealogist. 1939- . Published by David L Green, P.O. Box 398, Demorest, GA 30535. Cumulative index for vols. 1-60. With its focus on Colonial research problems, this quarterly journal usually includes at least one article in most issues discussing the origins or foreign ancestry of an early immigrant.

New England Historical and Genealogical Register. 1847- . Published by the New England Historical and Genealogical Society, 101 Newbury St., Boston, MA 02116. Every-name index to vols. 1-50, and 51 through 147. First 147 volumes also available on CD-ROM. With so many early immigrants settling in New England, the cumulated contents of America’s oldest genealogical journal has a wealth of information about Colonial immigrants. Articles include both genealogical accounts and abstracts of records mentioning the ancestral home of early immigrants (such as English probates mentioning Colonial residents).

New York Genealogical and Biographical Record. 1870- . Published by the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, 122 East Fifty-eighth Street, New York NY 10022. One of the best places to turn for the origins of Colonial Dutch settlers of New York, this quarterly journal has published hundreds of useful articles.

The Second Boat. 1980- . Published by Bachelor/Dormer, P.O. Box 398, Machias, ME 04654. Designed to help document the arrival of persons who came on later ships (hence the title), this periodical has few genealogical accounts, concentrating more on lists of immigrants, some well-documented, others just speculative. Its primary focus is Colonial New England.

Ethnic periodicals have become increasingly popular in recent years. However, most of these periodicals deal with how to research ethnic families.

Therefore they tend to be more instructional, and less likely to have significant articles naming immigrants. Research into foreign ancestry and various ethnic groups often differs in varying degrees from traditional American-British research.

Different records, customs, migration and settlement patterns, and even language need to be explained to researchers not raised in that particular ethnic culture.

The growth of interest in ethnic research has been mirrored by a growing number of periodicals that focus on these areas. Today there are close to 200 periodicals for ethnic genealogical research. The areas of greatest interest, in terms of English-language periodicals, seem to be (in descending order of number of publications): German, Jewish, French, African-American, Irish, Hispanic, and Native Americans. Other periodicals exist for Acadian, Dutch, Italian, Polish, Swiss and many other ethnic groups.

A few ethnic-oriented periodicals do specialize in discussing immigrants, or in publishing records which name immigrants. Three examples include:

Palatine Immigrant. 1976- . Published by Palatines to America, Capitol University, P.O. Box 101, Columbus, OH 43209. Focuses on Germans, especially those who settled Colonial Pennsylvania.

Swedish American Genealogist. 1978- . Published by Nils W. Olson, ed., P.O. Box 2186, Winter Park, FL 32790. Although most Swedes arrived long after the Revolutionary War, this well-respected journal treats Swedes of any time period, including the short-lived colony on the Delaware.

The Swiss Connection. 1992- . Published by Marilyn Wellauer, 2845 North 72nd Street, Milwaukee, WI 53210. Relatively few Swiss arrived in the Colonial Era, but the editorís objective includes documenting all Swiss immigrants, as well as educating readers about Swiss research and culture.

Surname periodicals also deserve brief mention. Many periodicals focus on one family or a surname and its variants. They are often published by an individual interested in that name. Others are published by a family association.

The purpose of surname periodicals, regardless of how they are published, is to locate and publish information about people who share the surname of interest. Often not much more than a newsletter, they are still a significant research tool. They include all types of articles from compiled genealogies and abstracts of original records to queries and indexes.

It is important to note that some publications of this type focus on just one family, rather than all persons who share the surname.

For the researcher, surname periodicals and their publishers can be a great boon. Finding a periodical for a surname of interest is much like finding a published genealogy on the family. Most of the information will not be directly helpful but it is likely that some will pertain to the family being searched. Most of the information is secondary and needs to be further proven, but, in essence, such a periodical becomes a master index to dozens or hundreds of records and identifies where there is information on the particular surname. While much of the content of surname periodicals does not deal with immigrants, virtually every such publication does discuss the immigrants who shared that surname.