New Book Reveals Hidden Family Histories Through Colonial Era Merchant Records
Historian and genealogical researcher Ken D. Johnson announces the release of GENEALOGICAL CLUES PROVIDED BY COLONIAL MERCHANTS: The Financial Records of the Sanders Family of Early Albany County, New York, a deeply researched exploration into the everyday lives of Colonial Americans through surviving business ledgers and merchant account books.
Co-authored with the late Marilyn J. Cramer, the book offers readers a rare glimpse into 18th-century life in Colonial Upstate New York, using primary source financial records to uncover forgotten stories of families, commerce, social customs, and community life. Through meticulous examination of merchant transactions, Johnson demonstrates how ordinary bookkeeping records became extraordinary historical documents preserving details of marriages, deaths, travel, medical care, fashion, slavery, political activity, and family relationships.
“Reading these records transports the reader back into the ‘modern days’ of the 18th century,” Johnson explains. “The merchant clerks recording daily transactions could not have imagined they were preserving priceless genealogical and social history for future generations.”
The book centers on the Sanders family records of early Albany County, New York, and reveals how colonial merchants unintentionally documented the lives of an entire community. Johnson argues that because so many church records, civil documents, and family papers were destroyed through war, migration, fires, and natural disasters, surviving business records often provide the only remaining evidence of family connections and community interactions.
GENEALOGICAL CLUES PROVIDED BY COLONIAL MERCHANTS sheds new light on life along New York’s colonial frontier, offering researchers, historians, genealogists, and history enthusiasts valuable insights into the social and economic realities of early American communities. The work also highlights important historical events and political sentiments reflected in daily commerce, including references tied to Revolutionary-era activities such as the erection of the 1774 Schenectady Liberty Pole.
Johnson wrote the book out of a lifelong commitment to preserving the memories of Colonial Upstate New York’s early settlers and frontier families.
“A desire to preserve the memories of the men and women of Colonial Upstate New York inspired this work,” said Johnson. “These records place leaves and blossoms on the living family trees of our ancestors. This book also fulfills a promise made to my cousin and co-author, Marilyn J. Cramer, whose dedication to studying the lives of early New York families helped make this research possible.”In addition, Johnson has also contributed to The Johann Christian House Genealogy: The First Four Generations in the USA and Canada From 1709 to the early 1800’s, researched and written by Dr. Carolyn Smith-Pellettier with the assistance of Ken D. Johnson (2023).
Ken D. Johnson brings decades of historical research and public service experience to his writing. Born in Kearney, Nebraska, he is a graduate of Sumner High School and holds educational credentials from the University of Kansas, Central Community College of Columbus, Nebraska, Fulton-Montgomery County Community College in Johnstown, New York, and Friends University of Wichita, Kansas. Johnson is a veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard, former lighthouse keeper, career paramedic-firefighter, and registered nurse. He serves as historian of Colonial Fort Plank in Tryon County, New York, and resides in Fort Plain, New York, near the site where his ancestors died defending Fort Plank during the Revolutionary era.
His son, Karl Joseph-Brant Johnson, currently serves as a Polk County, Nebraska Sheriff’s Deputy. Johnson notes that Karl was named in honor of Joseph Brant, the Mohawk Nation Sachem and commissioned British military officer who played a major role in the history of the Mohawk Valley during the Revolutionary era. Though nearly all of Johnson’s known ancestors fought in support of the Rebel cause, he says the name was chosen out of admiration for Brant’s professionalism and humanity even in war.
Johnson is also the author of THE BLOODIED MOHAWK: The Revolutionary War in the Words of Fort Plank’s Defenders and Other Mohawk Valley Partisans (2000), and IN DEFENSE OF THE FACTS: In an Ongoing Search for Fort Plank (2026).
For additional information, visit:
Defenders of Fort Plank and Tryon County, New York Facebook Group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ColonialTryonCountyFamiles/
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064690537043
Media Contact:
Ken D. Johnson
Historian of Colonial Fort Plank
Fort Plain, New York
Website: www.forplank.org
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