Since we are on the subject of primogeniture, we may as well discuss the law of Entail as well. This was repealed in Virginia in 1776. It was especially cumbersome for the transfer of real estate if deeds are wills were not clearly written to convey land. I'll use an example from a client case in Middlesex County. Thomas Kidd died there in 1680, possessed of two tracts of land he had received by Crown patent. In his will, he left one of these to his eldest son Thomas Jr. AND HIS HEIRS FOREVER. The other tract he left to his son William. Period. Not to his heirs and not forever. William's land, then, was basically only his for life, and at his death would revert to his brother Thomas. The word FOREVER, in Thomas Jr.s case meant just that--forever. It could not be sold outside of the family. This was called the "entail." Both William and Thomas Kidd II died in 1727. William had no will (though it would not have mattered as he had no right to the land he was living on after his death). Thomas Kidd II left a will but it did not mention any of his land. The governing laws went ignored by the heirs of both brothers. William Kidd's sons sold portions of their father's land over the years. The heirs of Thomas Kidd Jr. did likewise. This all came to a screeching halt and was reversed in court when Thomas Kidd III, eldest son of Thomas Kidd II, then living in North Carolina, sent his attorney William Upshaw Davis to Virginia to both (1) claim the land as his own and then (2) "dock" the entail enabling him to sell it with clear title. The latter required an Act of Assembly. He was successful on both counts. In some cases, he sold it back to the very same people he had "taken" it away from. Craig Kilby Lancaster, VA