> What happened here? Did these people believe they held a patent and then > find out later they didn't? ***Yes; Sometimes - BUT NOT OFTEN, because surveyors were appointed by the governors and were as qualified as could be. Patents sometiomes overlapped by reason of the surveying difficulties in the wilderness that then was unsettled VA. I know it often took years for patents to be granted, but > more than 15 years? *** 15 years is a stretch, however sometimes patentees died after the right to the land was earned, yet before the land was "improved" to a degree sufficient to qualify for the actual grant. > And no patent was ever granted for the 150 acres that > was sold. Did these people apply for patents and then the paperwork was > lost? **** While I am sure this happened, the Clerks and those in the governors' administrations who handled grant and land matters were VERY careful as a rule. **** Were patents granted but never properly recorded? Very rarely, but yes. Remember though that recording was an animal of thsi continent, and was THEN unknown in England (thus "deed boxes"), and I am sure that some very few recent immigrants paid but little attention to that requirement. > Were some of the grant books lost? ****Yes, but VERY, VERY few; they were of the utmost importance to our earliest colonists. I know of no VA county that does not know whether or not the patent/land records for their county were lost at some time. > > I understand that when Brunswick Co was formed, some of the early records > (1720-1732) that were recorded in the Prince George Co books until the new county of Brunswick was organized were not copied into the Brunswick Co > books as they should have been. There was an order in 1735 that 52 deeds be > recorded, but apparently they never were. **** Good info, Cookie, especially for those who are researching Brunswick. But still, shouldn't there be grants for this land to somebody else? ****Not if the grant had been issued after "improvement" and not recorded. Weren't the grants recorded separately in the grant > books? **** at the governors' level, when the land was an original grant, the answer is yes. At the local level, at first, yes, but soon such entries were recorded in the same fashion as were other conveyances and documents having to do land. >