Although European-made glass trade beads can be sorted into bead varieties and studied in that manner on the basis of physical attributes, much more information can be obtained about them by means of chemical analysis. Such analyses produce chemical fingerprints that may be compared and grouped. Bead varieties that have matching chemistries were made using the same ingredients that probably came from the same sources, suggesting that they were made in a specific manufacturing center and probably during the same approximate time period. Using this information may help to establish with which European nationals specific indigenous people were dealing and may perhaps even link archaeologically recovered beads to the European beadmaking houses from whence they came.