Who pays attention to who crosses the borders into a country? Today, fewer and fewer countries pay attention. For example, there is less fuss made crossing from Germany into Austria (and vice versa) than there use to be on entering California (remember what that was like?). Centuries ago, little attention was paid to who was entering a country.
In Pennsylvania in 1717, so many Germans came into Philadelphia that it was enacted that they should register. No one paid any attention to the law until 1727 when a number of ships arrived carrying very sick passengers. The 1717 law was dusted off and enforced. Of course, the registration of people would not, of itself, prevent the spread of any disease. To the old law, a new one was added. A captain could not bring sick people into Philadelphia. He had to leave them outside the town until they were well (at least, that was the intent of the law).
As a consequence, the lists of whom ships brought into Pennsylvania start at the 1727 date. If I am correct, this applied only to non-English nationals. It did not apply to ships bringing people from England, Scotland, Wales, or Ireland. Other colonies did not start record keeping until later.
Prior to the 1727 date, lists of passengers were rarely made and kept. Those that were made were usually in connection with some special event, such as the signing of a compact, or the importation of people on government work. But these are rare events.
There is essentially no hope of reconstructing passenger lists from other evidence. In Virginia, the headrights are evidence that someone came into Virginia, and the time may be estimated as approximately seven to fifteen years earlier. But this tells nothing about the ship or the other passengers. The best alternative record, with some hope of providing more information than just a name, is a naturalization record. These are available for about two-thirds of the First Colony members. I have never tried to estimate how many of the Second Colony people were naturalized. Not everyone bothered to get their naturalization, even though there was a danger of losing their property if they died without being a citizen of Virginia.
Forty-eight of the people in the Second Colony were recorded at one time by Alexander Spotswood as headrights. This is not a complete list, as Spotswood said there were seventy-odd, and the Germans themselves said there were eighty. Beyond the forty-eight, the partners of Spotswood paid the transportation costs. (For example, there is excellent evidence that Robert Beverley paid for the transportation of George Moyer.)
This is a most unusual situation and gives an excellent documentation of the names of more than half of the Second Colony members. As to the ship that they came on I claim it was the Scott. The Captain was Andrew Tarbett. The fact that we have estimates of the ship’s name, the captain’s name, and about half of the passengers is a very unusual situation and we can’t hope to repeat these kinds of findings.
(21 Jul 00)
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.