Rex, so suppose that I buy your headright from the ship owner who brought you from Britain to VA. I then have an exclusive right to your labor, time, service, and skills - virtually your very life - for a term of years. Let's suppose you came here at age 18 and, as usual, you would have to serve me till age 25. Then suppose that when you were 22 I no longer needed you for whatever reason - I died, retired, gave up farming tobacco or whatever, took up the cloth, was thrown in jail, or ran off West with the neighbor's wife. Since you still owed me 3 years (25-22), I or my estate could sell your remaining term of service for whatever amount I could bargain from a buyer. If I did that, and then that new buyer found he could make a profit by selling your 3 years of servitude to still yet another person, he well might do so. On and on. Notice that each of these 'owners' of you in theory had reimbursed the previous owner for your transportation, and accordingly, under the ill-drafted law, each was entitled to land for having "transported" you. The main reason the practice continued without interruption was because there was a seemingly limitless quantity or land available for settlement, thus the law was not amended for MANY decades. Notice too that Britain collected more taxes since more land had been settled, more crops raised or products made, and more money was flowing, and so they were as pleased as government is today when they steal our money in the form of taxes. :-) Paul ----- Original Message ----- From: Rex Kirby To: VAROOTS-L@rootsweb.com Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2003 8:53 PM Subject: RE: [VAROOTS] Cavaliers and Pioneers Bev and Paul, Thank you both for the information and the web site... Now for a couple of questions... Bev, you mentioned land patent to Lt. Richard Popeley "for the transportation of 25 persons including Thomas Kirbye" and then Kirbye was assigned the land of Thomas Symons ...who received the land for the transportation of 9 persons on Nov 25, 1637." Correct me if I am wrong but would "transportation" mean bringing folks over from ? by ship to America? Am I to infer that Thomas Kirbye was a passenger on broad Popeley's ship and he could have been a "freeman, slave or indentured servant"? I assume further that Lt. Popeley did this sometime before June 10, 1635 perhaps as far back as two years or more. Is there anyway of knowing when Lt Popeley transported these 25 individuals. How would I find the name of the ship and the list of those 25 individuals and the classification of Kirbye as a passenger? As to the assignment of land to Kirbye in 1642 which had earlier been patented to Symons for transporting 9 people on Nov 25, 1637...Would that mean that Kirbye, if an indentured servant on Lt. Popeley's ship, was no longer indentured by 1642 which then enabled him to own land? I couldn't help but notice that 1642 minus 7 equals 1635. Would that suggest that Kirbye got here in 1635 as an indentured servant, served his seven years and then was able to own land in his own name by 1642? Can you refer me to any website or article discussing how a person became "un-indentured" so to speak? Who kept up with who was and who wasn't indentured? Were there any papers, certificates or whatever issued by any governmental agency? In other words, how would anyone know when an indentured servant was no longer indentured? I am somewhat lost on this little "ship" and will appreciate any help either or you or anyone else can provide that will light my way to shore... Thanks, Rex Kirby -----Original Message----- From: Paul Drake [mailto:pauldrake@charter.net] Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2003 12:28 PM To: VAROOTS-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [VAROOTS] HULETTS IN VA Here are the VA patents visible on line in photocopies of the original, thus open to you and more complete and accurate than are Nugent's Abstracts, where there are many errors and misinterpretations. You can search VA Land Office Patents by name of ancestor from the bottom of this page if you do not know the Vol. and page numbers. Paul http://eagle.vsla.edu/lonn/ ============================== To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237 ============================== To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237