Hello Everyone, I always enjoy these threads, always new anecdotes out there. I just want to make a couple of quick points that I hope weren't made before as I skimmed some of the posts. First the deed writing that appears to have excessive terms/words in it that the reader (Jean?) said had been seen many times (and inserted below) was, I believe, probably just the accepted legal boilerplate, generated by the lawyers involved, not by the court clerks out for a quid. There was the equivalent of "fill in the blanks" legal forms back then. If you look at Virginia land patents before 1750 or so, they all have pretty much the exact same language in the beginning and at the end,and amongst the descriptions, including that bit about Kent England, that has been misinterpreted to indicate the grantees' location in England in a couple of my own biggest errors handed down (in one case by a big time NY city genealogy research firm in the 1950s). This was just their boilerplate, with the year, the name of the king changed, but basically the same....Lots of words. Lawyers haven't changed much at all to this date (except in 1600s VA, I think per capita there were probably alot more civil suits -- hard to believe isn't it), except now the regular consumer can buy such boiler plate for personal legal matters in a handy software package (wills, divorces, etc.) and fill in the blanks for their cases, and file without review by a lawyer at their own peril. Thus said, I'm not sure who benefitted back then financially from the volume of words, except maybe the court clerks, or lawyer's assistant (possibly someone reading the law), And if so, more power to them -- piece work deemed necessary by their bosses. Second, from a Davidson County TN microfilm I ran across at DAR in Washington DC I found the 1840s will of my 4g grandfather William Haley -- from the court record version, and I thought nothing about it not being "the will". In 2003 I spent 2 days at the Mormon Library in Salt Lake (about 20 hours), and in collecting other Davidson Co. info, I ran across a different version in microfilm of loose papers -- what I think was probably, based on the really messy handwriting, William Haley's personal writing of his will that the court clerk copied. It has the original signatures of the witnesses and his own I assume -- none of which look like the clerk's work. In addition, there are a number of differences where it appears that the clerk "corrected" or edited awkward language, I believe he misinterpreted the number of horses he said he had roaming his land by about 5 (what I think is a 3 in the original is written in court book as an 8), etc. Also in what I feel is his original he gives proceeds from a very messy, yet-to-be-completed probate of the estate for his father in Richmond Co NC to his daughters "them that married Choat and Miles", and tells them to go to Missouri (and spend the proceeds only for that purpose). The clerk copied it as "daughters Choat and Miles", which I think is not as clear as the original, especially with the Robertson Co. TN early marriage books gone. Regarding the number of horses, that could actually be the kind of thing that became a big deal if the children, many of whom he didn't even name, decided to make it so. Anyway, just thought I'd add my two cents worth. Best Regards, Janet Hunter In a message dated 2/7/2009 1:01:00 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, jfstms@bellsouth.net writes: An example in writing a deed he " would never record a simple agreement to 'sell' a property. According to the scribe, the seller of the property "hath given granted bargained sold released & confirmed and by these presents doth give grant bargain sell release and confirm." I have seen this dozens of times. **************Who's never won? Biggest Grammy Award surprises of all time on AOL Music. (http://music.aol.com/grammys/pictures/never-won-a-grammy?ncid=emlcntusmusi00000003)