The New World held such promise for those who had the courage to leave their homes, braving the treacherous Atlantic to find new hope, new freedom-a new beginning. And most of all, land. Land of their own In 1607, the Jamestown Colony in Virginia was founded. From those first few souls who survived the tremendous hardships, the land swelled with English immigrants. By the 1700's, a mass migration had also taken place from Scotland, Ireland, France and Germany. Among those early immigrants were many of the author's own ancestors. From researching those families in Austin County, Texas described in her first book "From Jamestown to Texas," Meischen discovered that a great many of those prominent in Texas history also had dynamic roots in early Virginia. They had been intricately involved with the political, economic and religious elements that formed the United States of America today. "Virginia: The Cradle of America" is a study of many of these early prominent families and their relationship to those of the author's. Through an intense five year research of Virginia land grants, Meischen describes the interaction of these key colonial families-their neighbors, the churches they attended, their intermarriages, their political and religious ideas.