From the Land Office site - "A land patent is a land transaction during the Colonial period from the Crown to an individual. A land grant is a land transaction from the Commonwealth to an individual. A deed is a land transaction between individuals or private parties." In reading the Introduction to C&P, I found that these lands could be escheated if the person who received the patent died intestate or if he was convicted of a felony or if he did not settle the lands. Considering the possibility of escheat, maybe they were not claiming the same headright mutiple times as often as I originally thought. Bev ========Original Message======== Subj: RE: [VAROOTS] Cavaliers and Pioneers Date: 9/5/2003 12:02:19 AM Eastern Daylight Time From: <A HREF="mailto:rex@tyler.net">rex@tyler.net</A> Reply-to: <A HREF="mailto:VAROOTS-L@rootsweb.com">VAROOTS-L@rootsweb.com</A> To: <A HREF="mailto:VAROOTS-L@rootsweb.com">VAROOTS-L@rootsweb.com</A> Sent from the Internet (Details) Paul, Thanks much for the clarification. I gather that "transportation" was a rather general term that did not signify any particular event or occasion or relationship between the person receiving the land patent and the person for whom "transportation" was provided. Other than perhaps the person "transported" , if an indentured servant, may have still owed someone some amount of "time or labor" which could be sold or traded to someone else. If that is not a reasonably fair statement, please let me know. In my earlier post I tried to say that I was fishing in unknown murky waters without bait. The website you gave for VA land patents, etc is a fascinating site. I will be the first to admit I need to learn how to navigate that site a little better but what I found and didn't find didn't exactly clarify matters for me. I found the grant to Symons in 1637 but did not find the assignment to Kirbye in 1642 or at least have not found it so far. However, the list of patents and grants to Kirbys was a lot longer than I would have ever suspected, including a patent to a John Kirby on July 2, 1624 issued by the "Secretary of the Colony serving as the colonial Land Office." I am not familiar with VA history but I noted the VA land website designated land transfers as "patents" or "grants" with the later being issued by the Virginia Land Office and patents issued as noted above. I assume - correct me if I'm wrong- the difference being colony vs. state. Certainly, others researching their families in the earliest days of VA would do themselves good to visit this site. And I certainly thank you for unraveling some of the kinks in my inferences and assumptions. Rex -----Original Message----- From: Paul Drake [mailto:pauldrake@charter.net] Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2003 9:37 PM To: VAROOTS-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [VAROOTS] Cavaliers and Pioneers Rex; some of your inferences from what Mrs. Nugent (C&P) SEEMS to say are slightly in error. As often as not, the person who claimed the headright did not transport anybody at anytime ever; he purchased or traded for that headright sometimes soon after the voyage of a servant, but also sometimes years after the actual voyage of passage. The best illustration of this fact perhaps is that of the passage of Owen Griffith (c1635-1698). Though he shipped from Bristol to I of W Co, VA in 1658, his headright was later used by no less than three (3) separate men to claim 50 acres of land. Indeed, were that not enough, the last time his headright was used appears in 1703 - 5 years after his death, and 45 years after his emigration from Britain. The reason for such activity was simple. The law did NOT require that you transport anyone in order to own a headright and trade it for land. It was only required that you gain title to such a "right" by paying or otherwise dealing or bargaining with someone who had already transported or had paid still someone else for the transport of the servant(s), be that an owner of a headright who had previously purchased it, an entrepreneur/speculator who dealt in indentures (there were many in the 17th- and early 18th-centuries), ships' captains and owners who regularly brought such folks over at their own risk and sold those headrights at the wharves or through brokers, or a headright might be purchased from the person/servant himself who had paid his own way over and then wanted to sell himself into servitude to a tradesman or artisan, since jobs were quite scarce from time to time and he might learn a trade in that way. Many indentures passed through 4, 5, or 6 or more hands before land was claimed for that "right". Recording of such documents was almost unknown. Thus, good research does not permit us EVER to infer WHEN a person arrived based upon the date his or her headright was exchanged for land - "cashed in". The subject is not complicated, but we must remember that the person who owned the headright may have never even seen, known of, much less been acquainted with the person who actually transported the servant. Paul 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 ============================== 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