About Old Colony Books

Stories Rooted in the Past. History Connected to the Present.

Old Colony Books is an independent publishing imprint dedicated to bringing the history of New England to life through historical fiction, genealogy, and accessible historical research.

Founded by author and genealogist Eric J. Ostroff, Old Colony Books grew from a belief that history is more than a collection of names, dates, and distant events. It is the story of real people—the choices they made, the communities they built, the conflicts they endured, and the legacies they left behind.

The Metacom Saga

At the heart of Old Colony Books is The Metacom Saga, Eric J. Ostroff’s historical fiction series exploring the people and events that led to King Philip’s War, one of the most devastating conflicts in early American history.

The series begins with Yellow Feather, a novel more than fifteen years in the making.

Set during the final years of Massasoit Ousamequin, Great Sachem of the Pokanoket people, Yellow Feather explores a world in transition. For more than four decades, Massasoit had maintained a fragile peace between his people and the English colonists. But as he approaches the end of his life, expanding English settlements, competing political interests, cultural differences, and a new generation of leaders place increasing strain on the alliance he worked so long to preserve.

Through extensively researched historical settings and characters inspired by those who lived through these events, The Metacom Saga examines the relationships, decisions, loyalties, and misunderstandings that ultimately transformed New England.

The story continues in Beneath the Gathering Storm, the second volume of The Metacom Saga, as the uneasy world left behind after Massasoit's death moves ever closer to the conflict that history would remember as King Philip's War.

The Genealogist’s Guide to Massachusetts

Old Colony Books also publishes The Genealogist’s Guide to Massachusetts, a multi-volume reference series designed to help family historians discover where—and how—to find the records that can uncover their Massachusetts ancestors.

Massachusetts genealogy can be extraordinarily rewarding, but more than four centuries of changing towns, counties, jurisdictions, churches, record-keeping practices, and repositories can make research complicated.

The Genealogist’s Guide to Massachusetts is designed to make that process easier.

Across the series, researchers are introduced to the records, repositories, historical context, and research strategies needed to investigate Massachusetts families from the colonial period forward. Rather than simply telling genealogists that a record may exist, the guides are intended to help researchers understand where to look, what to look for, and why a particular source may matter.

The goal is simple: help genealogists move beyond copied family trees and unsupported family traditions and toward research built upon documentary evidence.

Trace Your New England Roots

That same mission continues through Eric's YouTube channel, Trace Your New England Roots.

With the motto “Where History Starts With Your Family,” the channel explores genealogy, New England history, DNA research, historical records, research strategies, family legends, brick walls, and the stories hidden within the documents our ancestors left behind.

The channel is designed for everyone from beginning family historians to experienced genealogists looking for new approaches to difficult research problems.

It also reflects one of the central ideas behind Old Colony Books: genealogy and history belong together.

Understanding an ancestor requires more than finding a birth, marriage, or death record. It means understanding the community in which that person lived, the events unfolding around them, and the social, religious, economic, and political forces that shaped their lives.

That is where genealogy becomes something larger.

It becomes history.

Where History Starts With Your Family

Whether through the world of The Metacom Saga, the research tools found in The Genealogist’s Guide to Massachusetts, or the stories and research explored on Trace Your New England Roots, Old Colony Books is built around one purpose:

To discover the people behind the history—and to keep their stories alive.