Dear Bruce, You say have been snagged by not finding a deed wherein your person acquired his land in and around Halifax Co., VA. He may have acquired the land in a parent county. But also, he may have gotten the land from the government--through a land patent. To find a parent county of any US county, use the Family History Library Catalog on _www.familysearch.org_ (http://www.familysearch.org) and then do a PLACE search. Type in the name of the county [but leave off the word county and then type in the State. The first lines will tell you when a county was formed, and what the parent county was. I copied this from the familysearch.org, doing a search of the catalog for Halifax Co., VA Formed in 1752 from Lunenburg County. Lunenburg was a HUGE county at one time, and there are many books on Lunenburg Co. where you may find some of your elusive North Carolinians!!! Have you searched the land patents for Virginia, which are online at the Library of Virginia website? (I do a google.com search for library of virgina, and the URL which bears the suffix *what we have* is the one you want to access.) My list of favorites is SO LONG that it is easier for me to use google.com There were several ways to acquire land: patent or grant, from the state (or later from the Federal) government; purchase from an individual (deed); deed of gift (generally recorded in a deed book); etc. Also never overlook sheriff's sales, sales by a corporation, like a railroad, etc. Also, the deed may be recorded in a different county, particularly if your person owned the land before the progeny county was formed. That is why county boundary change maps, like the one compiled by Michael L. Doran for Virginia's counties, are so helpful. Were I you, depending on the time period, I believe I would try to find some of the books on Lunenburg Co. compiled by Landon C. Bell (do an author search on the FHL catalog--all of his books are good). He did a lot of research of Lunenburg Co., and one of his books has a huge map of that area, from which most Southside Cos. were later formed. Lunenburg Co. itslef was formed from Brunswick Co. If you cannot find these books of Bell's at a nearby library (try University libraries and community college libraries), ask your librarian about interlibrary loan. Occasionally, the FHL in Salt Lake City will film or microfiche a book, and you can order the film or fiche from FHL for a small fee. However, reading a book on film is not as handy as having one in your hand!!! Also, rather recently, I believe Stephen E. Bradley have done some land survey records for Southside Virginia. You can do an author search on the FHL catalog and then choose the books which interest you. Bradley probably has a website, and I believe you can still purchase his books, but you again might want to ask about interlibrary loan. These books are rather fragile and perhaps the libraries do not let their genealogy books circulate. I don't think our people paid much attention to county lines, but the WATERCOURSE (creek, river, run, swamp) is most important in researching your people. Also note the neighbors along that watercourse. They frequently intermarried and migrated together. (This was a trick taught to me by a DAR staff genealogist--neighbors [associates] and watercourses.) I hope this helps. We have to always learn new tricks--and techniques, as these records were kept for the government and not for us genealogists. E.W.Wallace