Chester, Joseph Lemuel

Ct., 1821-1882. A Philadelphia journalist who went to England in 1858, living in London, and devoting himself to antiquarian research till he became one of the most famous genealogists of his day. His own writings include Greenwood Cemetery and Other Poems; Treatise on the Laws of Repulsion; Educational Laws of Virginia: the personal narrative of Margaret Dougla , imprisoned for the crime of teaching free coloured children to read; John Rogers, the Compiler of the English Bible; Preliminary Investigation of the Alleged Ancestry of George Washington. His most important antiquarian work is an edition of the Marriage, Baptismal, and Burial Registers of Westminster Abbey, with notes, on which he spent 17 years’ labour. He edited also the parish registers of six London city churches. See Dictionary of National Biography, vol. x.