Book excerpt: This is the ninth volume of a comprehensive history that traces the “Presidential Line” of the Washingtons. Volume one began with the immigrant John Washington who settled in Westmoreland Co., Va., in 1657, married Anne Pope, and was the great-grandfather of President George Washington. It contained the record of their descendants for a total of seven generations. Subsequent volumes two through eight continued this family history for an additional eight generations, highlighting most notable members (volume two) and tracing lines of descent from the royalty and nobility of England and continental Europe (volume three). Volume nine collects over 8,500 descendants of the recently discovered line of William Wright (died in Franklin Co., Va., ca. 1809). It also provides briefer accounts of five other early Wright families of Virginia that have often been mentioned by researchers as close kinsmen of George Washington, including: William Wright (died in Fauquier Co., Va., ca. 1805), Frances Wright and her husband Nimrod Ashby, and William Wright (died in Greensville Co., Va., by 1827). A cumulative index will complete the series as volume ten.