Yes, I've traced this Bowen line from Mecklenburg back through Lunenburg and Brunswick to Bristol Parish - wish I knew where in Bristol Parish. I suspect a connection with the Thomas Andrews Sr family of Henrico (later Chesterfield), but can't prove it yet. I have found no connection to the Bollings. It took collecting all the adjoining patent descriptions and even drawing them out (in my next life I'll become a surveyor), but I finally found out what happened to that land. Maybe how I solved this will help someone else with a similar problem. I knew the various patents referred to Robert Bowen's land and Edward Henry's land and a deed by Robert Bowen referred to the land he was selling as adjoining Edward Henry's land. But no grant existed for either piece of land until many years later when only a part of Robert Bowen's remaining land was granted a patent. Edward Henry's land just disappeared from the records. But their lands had obviously been surveyed for a patent prior to some of the other grants since their surveyed lines were referred to. So I collected all these patent descriptions and started drawing, hoping that somehow it would all come together. It did!! There must have been some major problem with the patents for these two tracts - and maybe a couple of others that were nearby too. When I started drawing up John Clack's 1760 patent, I realized those lines already existed. John Clack was patenting the land that had always been referred to as Henry's and Bowen's land in the previous patents. The few Bowen and Henry lines I'd been able to establish from other patents were exactly the same as Clack's. There was no mention of the land having escheated in Clack's patent. It was written as if the land had never before been patented. Bowen had obviously had his land surveyed for a patent and was convinced he held a valid claim to the land. He had even deeded part of it to Clement Read in 1753. But apparently Clack had had the land surveyed for his patent by then even though his patent wasn't grant ed until 1760. Lunenburg Order Book 2 1/2B, p 265 John Clack agst Robt Bowing dfdnt; plaintif to recover agst Bowing & Jas Mitchell sherif July Court, 1753 The record didn't say what this was all about, but in combination with everything else, it's apparent that Clack didn't like Bowen deeding "his" land to Read and expected Bowen to pay him for it. (I'm sure Bowen must have really resented this - especially since he had lost the land to a mortgage!) I don't know what went wrong with Bowen's patent or Henry's patent, but Clack apparently was able to obtain a grant and both of them lost their claim to the land. Bowen also held land on the west side of Eagles Nest Creek - part of the same tract of land, but Clack didn't go after this. Surely as soon as Bowen lost part of his land to Clack, he would have realized he needed to do something to protect the rest of his land so he wouldn't lose it too. He was eventually granted a patent on the remainder - but not until 1768, 15 years later. I was aware of the "lag time" between surveys and grants, but I was surprised it was this long. The lag time was at least 7 years in Clack's case. I also noticed that William Wright's land and Margaret Bagwell's land in this same area could not be traced back to patents. Perhaps the same thing happened to them - I don't know. Once I solved my Bowen problem, I didn't worry about their land any more. Anyone researching those families might want to keep that in mind though. Their land may have been swallowed up in a later grant. In working with these patents, I was also able to determine where a couple of creeks were located that can't be found labeled on any map, not even the 1870 map of Mecklenburg. On the 1870 map (section 8 http://www.rootsweb.com/~vameckle/8sect.htm ), Eagles Nest Creek is the creek east of Smith Creek with a fork at the head and a branch halfway down. Robert Bowen, Drury Bowen, William Bowen, and George Vaughan owned land on this creek. George Vaughan held another tract father south in the branches of Taylor's Creek. The next creek east of Eagles Nest (the 1870 map cut it off but you can find it if you go to Mapblast) was called Island Creek. John Clack patented all the land between Eagles Nest and Island Creek north of the branch in Eagles Nest and his line (originally Henry's line) which stretched from the head of the branch SW to Island Creek. This was where part of Robert Bowen's land and all of Edward Henry's land was located. East of that was the land first granted to John Roberts and later repatented by William Robertson. I don't know if William descended from John or if the name was in fact Roberts of Robertson. Robert Bowen's 1768 patent (he'd held the land since at least 1753) was on the west side of Eagles Nest with William Dobyns' 1755 patent west of Bowen's. The Dobyns' land was sold to John Harper. You'll see Harper's Road and Harper's Old Bridge on the 1870 map, but the Harper land extended east beyond Smith Creek and adjoined the Bowen land. If anyone is working on the early Vaughans, Maclins, and Wynns of Brunswick Co, I have run across some records that might tie those families together with a little more work. They're not my ancestors, but what I've found might be helpful to anyone working with those families. You can find that info at http://members.nbci.com/fcharper/vaughan.html Just out of curiosity - has anyone ever used any software for drawing up tracts of land from deed/patent descriptions? I used a ruler and protractor to try to draw it all to scale, but I found it really frustrating when the descriptions included phrases like "down the creek as it meanders to the beginning". How far was that? Where was that creek? Which way did it go? It's not on any map. Oh, no! Not to a river where the line meanders down that some indefinite distance too! How would software cope with something like that? Can it use the estimated acres and the other surveyed lines to mathematically estimate how long those vague meandering lines should be? I had hoped to draw up these grants as graphics, but the graphics programs I have don't seem to show angle measurements or the length of diagonal lines. So I had to drop back to the old ruler and protractor method.