The Warrants and Surveys that I have been quoting come from Peggy Shomo Joyner's " Abstracts of Virginia's Northern Neck Warrants & Surveys ". This four-volume set was compiled and published by her. Book orders may be directed to:
Peggy S. Joyner
3113 Riveredge Drive
Portsmouth, VA 23703.
The author was aware of the Warrants and Surveys in the loose papers at the Virginia State Archives, and, from Archives' personnel, obtained permission, and help in compiling them into meaningful and useful documents.
Another useful part of her books is a section of " Orange County Tithables for 1736-1739 ". With limitations, this is a Census of Orange County for those years. And, just like modern census takers, the ones collecting the Census data then went from house to house in a pattern that corresponds to the known land patents. Taking a map of the land patents, one can trace out the route they took, and even predict the next household that they will call on.
The spelling of names in these Tithe Lists is atrocious. The list directly in front of me as I type this shows an Adham Yeago, Michale Smith, and William Carpinter. Kerker comes out Careker, and Peggy Joyner was even confused on that one.
The more interesting part of these Lists is that there are a few people missing and there are a few extra people. There are two Lewis Fishers, for example. One of them resides south of the Robinson River, and one resides north of the river. This has led to some debate as to whether there were really two of them or not.
Speaking of Censuses, when someone looks in the year 2000 census, they won't find me. Twice during the census time, I noted that I had been overlooked and I called the census bureau to alert them. Both times they assured me that they would find me. But perhaps because we have a post office box to receive our mail, they may have looked there and didn't find us at home. Again, we have a lesson. The original documents are sometimes erroneous.
(24 Jul 02)
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.