Like the three earlier volumes in this series, the fourth and concluding volume is designed to identify ships plying their trade with North America between 1628 and 1828. While most early voyages between Scotland and North America were trading voyages, the majority of American-bound cargo ships carried a small complement of passengers. Some of these passengers are named in newspaper accounts and in other sources found in the archives in Scotland, England, the United States, and Canada that author David Dobson consulted for this book.