Virkus guided the publication of the Compendium for more than two decades with the intention of producing a genealogical encyclopedia of the “first families of America”.
The Compendium includes the lineage records of the earliest European families settling in the portion of North America that later became the United States.
The Compendium contains more than 54,000 lineage records, with indexes listing almost 425,000 names, making it a standard reference and research source on American genealogy.
The Compendium was compiled largely from manuscript genealogies and other lineage records submitted by individuals selected by Virkus for inclusion.
The supporting files and documents for the Compendium were once housed in the Peabody Library, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, but are now part of the Manuscript Collection of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Library, in Washington, D.C.1 Early volumes of the set were titled Abridged Compendium of American Genealogy, but Abridged was dropped from the title beginning with the fourth volume.