Acknowledgments

This historical digest is a compilation of information discovered and uncovered by qualified historians and fact seekers. My only contributions were weeding out superfluous information and placing the stories on a continuous time-line. Thank you to Stephen King for advising all writers to “Keep the action moving.”

Hundreds of people have helped me so far, from the lady sitting in the plane seat next to me who grew up on the Cape Verde Islands, to professors at Bristol and Cambridge Universities. I appreciate every minute of everyone’s time. I thank every author and historian who researched and wrote the information I have gathered. This is only a partial list of people who went out of their way to assist me:

Tim Mellow, Park Supervisor at Dighton Rock State Park in Massachusetts.

Paul Cartledge, Professor of Classics at Cambridge University, an authority on Ancient Greece.

Dr. Evan T. Jones, Professor at the University of Bristol, an authority on the replica of John Cabot’s ship the Matthew and Bristol’s maritime history.

Rob Salvidge, the Matthew replica’s skipper. He gave me insight into the workings of the ship as she sailed down the River Avon.

The Matthew’s crew. They showered me with tasty trivia bits about what it would have been like living on a small ship four hundred years ago.

Map expert and collector Jim Siebold for providing access to old maps on his web site Cartographic-images.net

Maria João Marques Soares of Greatwest Tours drove to the hard-to-reach historical corners in Portugal and shared her immense knowledge about her country’s culture.

Avi Schoenholz translated some Hebrew references into English for me.

Genealogists and historians David Dearborn, Christopher Child, Jerome Anderson, David Lambert, Michael LeClerc, Rhonda McClure, Judy Lucey, and Ryan Woods for their assistance and guidance at the New England Historic and Genealogical Society [NEHGS] in Boston.

The librarians at the libraries and museums I listed on my Sources page.

Tom Mitchell for his encouragement and support.

My two children and their spouses for listening to me talk about my research during the three years it took me to complete this.

My late grandfather, Dr. Prynce Charles Hopkins, who taught me the importance of education and learning about other cultures and religions.

The anonymous technicians at Google Books who, in dusty old libraries, carried out the tedious task of digitizing old books that I would never have been able to access otherwise.