Lancaster County Virginia History and Genealogy

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Iberian Publishing Company's On-Line Catalog:
Lancaster County Virginia

Named for its counterpart county in England, Lancaster County was formed in 1651 from Northumberland County and York County and comprised the land on both sides of the Rappahannock River to the ridges. In 1656 the upper portion of Lancaster was cut off to form "Old" Rappahannock County, and in 1669 the territory west of the river was taken to become Middlesex County. At that time Lancaster reached its present boundaries. Lancaster has had no losses from fire or war, and except for a few gaps, the county record is complete.

For a better understanding of county boundary changes, see our new section Virginia in Maps
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LANCASTER CO., VA WILL BOOK 10, 1709-1727 Abstracted, annotated and compiled by Craig Kilby. 2014, 8 x 10, x, 217 pages, appendices, indices. From the author's Introduction:

"Thus begins the 560 pages that comprise Lancaster County Will Book 10, which spans the terms of three clerks and 18 years during the morning of Virginia's "Golden Age." Other than what brief treatment is given to its contents in Ida J. Lee's 1959 Abstracts Lancaster County, Virginia, Wills 1653-1800, the full contents of Will Book 10 have never before been compiled or published.
No truly accurate picture of these records can be complete without the corresponding court orders that initiated their being put to record in the first place. In this case, those are Order Books 5, 6 & 7 which cover the period 1702-1729. Only the first 148 page of Order Book 5 have been published (up to 1706), and the order book itself is not indexed. Order Books 6 and 7 have not been published, but thankfully are at least somewhat indexed. It is in these Order Books that a great deal of explanatory information is to be found regarding relationships not otherwise explained in the record itself. They are also an excellent way to cross-check uncertain or illegible spellings of names in the will book.
The three clerks whose unique handwriting graces the pages of Will Book 10 were (1) Joseph Tayloe who served from 1696 to 1716; (2) William Dare (1716-1720) and (3) Thomas Edwards (1720-1746).
This volume includes three appendices which shed additional light on original records preserved at the Library of Virginia, many of which have never been published and are not easily available to most researchers.
Appendix A is a general Index to the principle parties and records, much as one would find in the record book itself. Unlike the original record book, it is a complete listing of all documents with dates associated with them.
Appendix B is a digest of unrecorded-but extant-original wills. These were sent to the Library of Virginia some time in the 1960s, where photo-static images were made and then bound into a paginated volume. They were, however, never microfilmed. When Mrs. Lee wrote her book in 1959, these were still at the Court House in Lancaster, but apparently in no organized fashion, for her book omits many of them. For the period covering 1709 to 1727, there are eleven such wills, of which only two were included in Mrs. Lee's book. Included in the digest is the page of the bound volume, date signed and presented when known, and list of principle heirs named.
Appendix C is similar to Appendix B, but is an index to original inventories and some accounts and administration bonds. There are 145 such documents, mostly inventories and most of these were recorded in the will book. However, twenty-one of them were never recorded and in the case of intestates they are the only probate record outside of the Order Books (sometimes) that identify these decedents. These are on microfilm at the Library of Virginia in Virginia and the Mary Ball Washington Museum & Library in Lancaster. They cover all of reel 301 and the first part of reel 302 at both repositories.
These original papers of course include original signatures (or marks) of the appraisers and often-times the executors or administrators. These can of invaluable use in distinguishing between two people of the same name living at the same time. For that reason, I have compiled a complete list of these with the reel number and frame numbers of the reel as a quick finding aid for those wishing to pursue this interesting and overlooked avenue of research.
The entire text including the three appendices are fully indexed in the back of the book. I developed what I call the "expanded index" after years of using books of a similar nature. In this index, the reader can readily see what role a person is playing in a document without having to flip through all the pages just to find out someone was a witness to a will. Not that such information is not important-it is. But it isn't nearly as fun as getting straight to the good parts.
The expanded index includes separate categories for places and ships. Slaves are indexed under their owner's name, which in my view is much more valuable contextually for researchers than lumping all slaves under one category with nothing but first names."

To view a digital copy of the every-name index to this book, visit Index-Lwb10
(Close the pdf file with the left arrow to return to Iberian's catalog) [LWB10] $38.50

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[ELWB10] $25.00 (electronic version)

LANCASTER CO., VA 1810 CENSUS transcribed by John Vogt. 2009, 8 x 10, x, 17 pages, illustrations, maps, notes. The transcriber has created an accurate record of this important Chesapeake county with its heavy slave holding and stable population. The transcriber has also utiilized the 1815 Directory of Virginia Landowners for this county and has included more than two hundred locations of the residences.
[LC10] $8.95 (printed version)

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[ELC10] $6.00 (electronic version)

LANCASTER COUNTY VIRGINIA REGISTER OF FREE NEGROES 1806-1860 Brigitte Burkett, 8"x 11" format, 24 pages, index. A transcription of the Lancaster County, Virginia Register of Free Negroes, recorded by the Lancaster County clerk between the years 1803-1860. The register is now in possession of the Manuscripts Division of the Virginia State Library and Archives, Richmond, Virginia. The format of the original dates has been altered for uniformity of presentation. All names have been spelled as in the original.
To view a digital copy of the index to this book, visit Index-Lrfn
(Close the pdf file with the left arrow to return to Iberian's catalog) [Lrfn] $10.95

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[ELRFN] $7.00 (electronic version)

ABSTRACTS OF VIRGINIA's NORTHERN NECK (LAND) WARRANTS & SURVEYS, 1697-1784 (HAMPSHIRE, BERKELEY, LOUDOUN, FAIRFAX, KING GEORGE, WESTMORELAND, RICHMOND, NORTHUMBERLAND AND LANCASTER COUNTIES) by Peggy Shomo Joyner. 1987, xv, 225 pp. Published as the fourth and last volume in a series of Northern Neck Warrants & Surveys, this collection has become a standard reference work for researchers in the period of colonial Virginia history.
Contents:
Hampshire, 1750-1784 (pp. 1-78); Berkeley (1734), 1750-1781 (pp. 79-96); Loudoun, (1729), 1744-1779 (pp. 97-104); Fairfax, (1697), 1739-1779 (pp. 105-120); King George, (1667), 1722-1770 (pp. 121-127); Westmoreland, (1650), 1722-1778 (pp. 129-134); Richmond, (1662), 1697-1778 (pp. 135-140); Northumberland, (1653), 1719-1750 (pp. 141-142); Lancaster, (1664), 1723-1756 (p. 143); Guy Broadwater Surveys, 1749 (pp. 145-150); Miscellaneous Wills from Land Office Records, 1656-1840 (pp. 151-160); Jonathan Clark Notebook (Improvements in the Northern Neck), 1786 (pp. 161-186); Placename index, name index.

The Northern Neck Proprietary, also called the Fairfax Proprietary, or Fairfax Grant, was a land grant first created by the exiled English King Charles II in 1649 and encompassing all the lands bounded by the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers in colonial Virginia. This constituted up to 5,200,000 acres of Virginia's Northern Neck and a vast area northwest of it.

The grant became actual in 1660 when Charles was restored to the English throne. By 1719, these lands had been inherited by Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron (1693-1781). By that time the question of the boundaries of the designated lands had also become highly contentious. It was decided in 1746 that a line between the sources of the North Branch of the Potomac and the Rappahannock River (the "Fairfax Line") would constitute the western limit of Lord Fairfax's lands. The early 17th century decade was witnessing a wave of pioneer settlement throughout the region.

To obtain land a person purchased a warrant from the proprietor's agent specifying the precise location of the desired land. The warrant was then given to a surveyor, who surveyed the land. The plat, warrant, and any related papers were returned to the proprietor's office, and if the title was clear, a grant was recorded and then issued. At any point after the warrant was purchased the land could be assigned (sold) to another person, and years could elapse between the purchase of the warrant and the issuance of a grant.

The volume is arranged first by county, then alphabetic by grantee. Please note: The index provided at the end of the volume contains only those persons whose reference occurs outside the alphabetic listing in the volume. It is NOT a complete index of names or places.

[Nnw4] $27.00

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[ENNW4] $20.00 electronic version; please note: this is a large .pdf file and will be sent as a .zip file.

Lancaster Co. 1815 Directory of Landowners by Roger G. Ward. 2005. 13 pages, map, 5 1/2X8 1/2.
For a full description of the 1815 LAND DIRECTORY Records and a listing of available counties, see: Individual County Booklets, 1815 Directory of Virginia Landowners

[Vd57] $6.00

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[EVd57] $4.50 (electronic version)

Lancaster Co. Revolutionary Public Claims transcribed by Janice L. Abercrombie and Richard Slatten.. 2005. 30 pages, 5 1/2X8 1/2.
For a full description of the Virginia Revolutionary Public Claims and a listing of available counties, see: Revolutionary "Publick" Claims series

To view a digital copy (pdf) of the index to this book, visit Index-Lanc
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[Pc39] $6.00 (printed version)

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[EPc39] $3.50 (electronic version)

For more records pertaining to LANCASTER COUNTY, VIRGINIA see also:

Northumberland County
Middlesex County
Rappahannock County
Guide to Virginia Militia Units in the War of 1812
Chart on the Formation of Virginia Counties
Atlas of County Boundary Changes in Virginia, 1634-1895
Index to the 1810 Virginia Census

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Iberian Publishing Company's On-Line Catalog: Lancaster County Virginia

Iberian Publishing Company's On-Line Catalog:
Lancaster County Virginia