*[Es ist sehr kalt heute.]
Many of these Notes, some time in the past, have been devoted to the records to be found in the Public Record Office (and similar depositories) in England. Some of these are very informative. (My special delight would be to have the records for the Debtor’s Prison in 1717, but they say the records for two years around this time are missing.) I have used several of these records in articles in Beyond Germanna and in Seminar talks.
These were helpful in deciding that Andrew Tarbett was the master of the ship Scott and that it was probably this ship which brought about eighty people to Virginia. Another record contributed a lot to showing that no iron was shipped from Virginia before 1724, which helped show that the story about the First Colony being employed to make iron for Spotswood is false. Other documents by Michel and von Graffenried make the true reason clearer.
The good thing about these documents from the PRO is that they seem to be in excellent shape and very readable. In theory, all of the items which pertain to Virginia have been microfilmed and are available in the Virginia State Library but my experience with these has not been good. Many of them are not clear, whereas the originals are very good.
The list I mentioned in the last Note, which was a petition for financial help in returning to Germany, is an example of a document which had not been previously known to the world at large. It was found by Hank Jones. This, in conjunction with the St. Mary’s church records in London, has been very helpful in understanding the history of the Second Colony, including those who were delayed in getting to Virginia.
It would be fun to look in the PRO for more documents that might be informative. The English records are readable. There are German records in some very unlikely places in Germany which are very helpful. Andreas Mielke has worked on finding these and translating them. They too show some light on our history. He correctly interpreted the Johann Justus Albrecht poll deed which has been misinterpreted, and he found a letter of the Second Colony history. But I have to leave the German records (and Dutch records and the Swiss records and the Austrian records) to someone who speaks the language.
I could, given some time, look for and publish English documents that bear on our history. There are a surprising number. (It helps to have been involved with a Lt. Governor who was in hot water.)
*[It is very cold today.] (Identical word order.)
(06 Apr 07)
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.