Colonial Families of Surry and Isle of Wight Counties, Virginia. Volume 5: Isle of Wight County, Virginia, Deeds, Wills, Conveyances, Book A, 1628-1659

John A. Brayton

<p>Membership in the distinguished Order of the First Families of North Carolina (OFFNC) requires having an ancestor who lived in North Carolina before it became a royal colony on July 12, 1729. Several years ago, the OFFNC commissioned esteemed genealogist John Brayton to prepare a series documenting the genealogy of the organization's qualifying ancestors, and in 2005 Mr. Brayton's published the maiden volume entitled Order of First Families of North Carolina Registry of Ancestors Vol. 1. Most of the genealogies in that work, which cover more than a score of qualifying ancestors trace the subject's family for a full first and second generation, down to the fourth, with drop-charts describing descent to members of the OFFNC. We are delighted to report that Order of First Families of North Carolina Registry of Ancestors Vol. 2: The Descendants of John (d. 1692) and Thomas Williams (D. 1693) of Isle of Wight County is now available. In this volume John Brayton concerns himself with the many different colonial WILLIAMS families of the Tidewater area who subsequently settled in northeastern North Carolina. The Williams of Virginia's Isle of Wight and Surry counties figure prominently not only in the ancestry of many colonial North Carolina families but also in the settling of southeastern Virginia and that part of North Carolina just east and southeast of the Piedmont: Albemarle, Chowan, Bertie, Edgecombe, Northampton, Halifax, Warren, Granville, Hertford, Duplin, Sampson, Jones, Onslow, Wayne and Nash counties. In addition to the main Williams branches, Volume 2 contains numerous references to hundreds of other families, including the following allied ones: Alexander, Browne/Browne, Castellaw, Cobb/Cobbs, Councill, Daughtrey/Doughtry, Davis, Drake, Edwards, Hardy, Herring/Hearing/Hearin/Herron, Hicks/Hix, Jones, Joyner/Joiner, Kerby/Kirby, Pierce/Peirce, Pitts, Redditt, Smith/Smyth, Whitfield, and Whitley/Wheatley.</p>

Order of First Families of North Carolina Registry of Ancestors Vol. 2

Genealogical Publishing Compan

A leading expert on North Carolina, Virginia, and royal genealogy, John Anderson Brayton is the author of nearly a score of books and numerous articles in highly respected periodicals, including the North Carolina Genealogical Journal and the New England Historical and Genealogical Register. His publications are known for extraordinary attention to detail. All of them, like the two-volume Transcription of Provincial North Carolina Wills, 1663-1729/30, are characterized by faithful transcriptions of original sources. His uncompromising scholarship has enabled him to debunk myths and mistakes found in numerous older genealogy publications. Mr. Brayton's latest work is Abstracts of Pasquotank County, NC, Deeds, 1750-1770. Pasquotank County, located in the Albemarle region of North Carolina, was formed in 1670. It is the parent of Camden County. For Abstracts of Pasquotank County, NC, Deeds, 1750-1770, Mr. Brayton traveled to the Elizabeth City courthouse, where he abstracted the original Pasquotank deeds in its possession. The transcriptions incorporate a variety of land instruments: (1) instruments of sale from grantor to grantee, (2) deeds of trust in which the debtor offers collateral in the event he cannot pay the amount owed, (3) decrees issued by courts in which a debtor's property must be sold to pay off a debt, (4) deeds of gift, (5) straight sales of Negro slaves from one person to another, and (6) land grants from the governor to a patentee. In all, the author has produced 2,250 abstracts, which hold the key to about 9,000 early inhabitants of North Carolina. In addition to the complete name index to persons named in the instruments, Mr. Brayton has also added an index to slaves and another to places named in the deeds.

Abstracts of Pasquotank County, North Carolina, Deeds, 1750-1770, Book F & G, Book D & E and Book C

Clearfield Company

Lower Norfolk County was established in 1637. It was the parent county of Norfolk and Princess Anne counties, which today have been superseded by the metropolises Chesapeake City and Virginia Beach. John A. Brayton's newest series of publications anticipates the transcription of Lower Norfolk County's extant colonial records. This is Volume Two of that series; Volume One: Wills & Deeds, Book D, 1656-1666 was published in 2008. Whereas the inaugural volume was primarily a verbatim accounting of the county's oldest extant wills and deeds, this volume is more wide-ranging. According to Mr. Brayton, this book is a complete documentation of the activities of the county court, encompassing wills, deeds, court minutes, and court orders. Included are the usual tales of drunkenness and cruelty, of voyages to parts beyond the seas, of servants' attempts to escape their masters, and of a number of accounts of inhabitants "who had enjoyed the benefits of marriage with their partners before the fact of the sacrament itself." Besides the records themselves, Mr. Brayton provides a key to handwriting peculiarities of the era, a list of abbreviations and their meanings, and two indexes--the first a name index to the roughly 5,000 individuals mentioned in the documents, and the second an index to all places, vessels, and slaves contained therein.

Transcriptions of Lower Norfolk Co, VA, Records, Vol. 2, Records, Book C, 1651-1656

<p>Few people command the knowledge of Tidewater North Carolina and Virginia records and the ancestors they point to as John Anderson Brayton does. Transcriptions of Isle of Wight County, Virginia, Deed Book 1, 1688-1705 marks the eleventh volume in Brayton's series Colonial Records of Surry and Isle of Wight Counties, Virginia. This deed book, to quote Mr. Brayton, "contains a little of everything, although there are mostly deeds, depositions, and a few wills scattered throughout. It seems, finally, to be a companion to the will books, which were now fully dedicated to probate information. . . . The depositions were particularly valuable in providing ages and personal information not often contained in the land transfers." In all, the researcher will find more than 3,000 references to late-17th-century Isle of Wight inhabitants in the name index to the volume.</p>

Colonial Records of Surry and Isle of Wight Counties, Virginia, Volume 11

Otter Bay Books

This annotated collection of Currituck County wills begins with an informed Introduction describing, among other things, the origins of Currituck records, the transfer of Knotts Island, Virginia, to Currituck, and the liberties taken by will scribes in the reconstruction or shortening of Currituck surnames. Working in the Norfolk and Princess Anne County probate records, as well as in those of Currituck itself, compiler John Anderson Brayton limited his attention to wills signed before 1760 or found among the loose papers of the North Carolina Secretary of State. Of perhaps greatest interest, throughout the volume Mr. Brayton annotates the contents of the wills with genealogical commentary about testators or others mentioned therein, or with cross-references to other documents in the volume. Annotated Transcriptions of Currituck Wills [to 1760] refers to upwards of 4,000 early Currituck County forebears.

Annotated Transcription of Colonial Currituck County, North Carolina, Wills

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