North Carolina Genealogy

Denmark had a colonial empire from the 18th century until the 20th. Large portions of it involved the colonization of the Americas. Explorers and settlers from Denmark took possession of the Danish West Indies (present-day U.S. Virgin Islands), which Denmark later sold to the United States. Beginning in 1721, they also founded colonies in Greenland, […]

Portugal was the leading country in the European exploration of the world in the 15th century. The Treaty of Tordesillas split the New World into Spanish and Portuguese zones in 1494.

After the discovery of northern Alaska by Ivan Fedorov in 1732, and the Aleutian Islands, southern Alaska, and north-western shores of North America in 1741 during the Russian exploration conducted by Vitus Bering and Aleksei Chirikov, it took fifty years until the founding of the first Russian colony in Alaska in 1784 by Grigory Shelikhov. […]

The Darién scheme was an unsuccessful attempt by the Kingdom of Scotland to establish a colony on the Isthmus of Panama.

The Swedish colonization of the Americas consisted of a 17th century settlement on the Delaware River in Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, and possessions in the Caribbean during the 18th and 19th century.

Spanish conquest and colonization of the Americas began with the arrival in America of Christopher Columbus in 1492. He had been searching for a new route to the Asian Indies and was convinced he had found it. Columbus was made governor of the new territories and made several more journeys across the Atlantic Ocean. He […]

During the 17th century, Dutch traders established trade posts and plantations throughout the Americas; actual colonization, with Dutch settling in the new lands was not as common as with settlements of other European nations. Many of the Dutch settlements had been abandoned or lost by the end of the century, with the exception of the […]

North America The French established colonies across the New World in the 17th century. They were developed to export sugar and furs among other products. Explorers and settlers from France settled in what is now Canada, the Mississippi Valley and along the Gulf coast in what is now Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana founding the cities […]

Jamestown was founded in 1607 by the London Virginia Company. Three ships, Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery arrived at Jamestown on May 14, and their crews of 104 men and boys began the first permanent English settlement in North America. The settlers consisted mainly of English farmers and Polish woodcutters, hired in Royal Prussia. Upon […]

British North America The English established colonies along the east coast of North America from Newfoundland as far south as Florida. Initially, the name “Virginia”, named after Queen Elizabeth I was applied to the entire coast, including what is now the Canadian Maritimes and Newfoundland. Early colonies included