The purpose of headrights was to transfer land at a fixed schedule of fifty acres per headright. An immigrant to Virginia was entitled to one headright. Usually the headright went to the person who paid the transportation. But it wasn't always the case.
For example, Lawrence Crees of the Second Germanna Colony patented 200 acres of new land in 1732 and paid for it with four headrights, those of John Cuntz, Katherine Cuntz, Peter Hitt and Elizabeth Hitt, all of whom were members of the First Germanna Colony. Did Lawrence Crees pay the transportation of John and Katherine Cuntz and of Peter and Elizabeth Hitt? No, he wasn't even in Virginia when the Cuntzes and Hitts came.
From the application for the Cuntz headright (in 1724), the testimony was that Joseph, his wife Katherine, and children, John, Annallis, and Katharina, came in 1714. The headright certificate was actually issued in 1729. Similar dates apply to Peter and Elizabeth Hitt. (All of this is in the Spotsylvania Order Book for 1724 to 1730.)
What happened is that Joseph Cuntz applied in 1724 and received five headrights in 1729. The five year delay was probably because he couldn't use the headrights in the Northern Neck so he did not push to obtain the certificates. The value was quite small, worth only a few shillings per headright. But eventually he did obtain them. Then he did nothing with them until a few more years had gone by and then he sold two of them to Lawrence Crees who used them in 1733 outside the Northern Neck.
Though the names appear in the Crees patent, Crees did not pay the transportion costs. Nor was he here before the Cuntzes were here.
Also, one might form an erroneous opinion about who was in the Cuntz family. From the headright, one might think that the head of the family was John and that Katherin was probably his wife. As we have just seen, this would be wrong. It remains a question as why Lawrence Crees did not buy all four of the four headrights he could use from Joseph Cuntz. Instead he split his purchase with two Cuntz headrights and two Hitt headrights.
On the same 1724 and 1729 dates, John Huffman applied for headrights for himself and his wife, Katherina, saying they came in 1714. You might conclude that John and Katherina were married when they came. Since Katherina was only twelve years old in 1714, you might also conclude that she had married very young. Fortunately, we have John Huffman's Bible record in which he records his wedding at a later date. In 1714, Katherina was still the unmarried daughter of Rev. Häger.
There is a general lesson here. For a variety of reasons, we must be very careful about drawing conclusions. Headrights are not always what they appear to be. But we should extend this conclusion to other types of records as well.
I have, and you probably have also, read Virginia genealogies based on nothing much more than an appearance of a name as an importee. Makes you wonder.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.