The Huntington Library Bookstore held a real treasure: The Old Dominion in the Seventeenth Century: A Documentary History of Virginia, 1606-1700. Rev ed. Edited by Warren M. Billings. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. Orig published 1975).
The original edition became a classic and was still used as a college text when Billings decided a new edition was critically needed–to expand suggested readings and add new research findings about ethnic backgrounds, including Indians and Blacks. Historical summaries of Virginia society and political development were out of date. And the discovery of caches of little-known Virginia documents required new understanding of historical events.
This wonderful, jusrisdictionally-oriented volume, discusses and illustrates the evolution of self-government in Virginia:
- The Governor and the Assembly (House of Burgesses)
- Local Government–County and Independent Cities
- Virginia Society–Important families and their kin; indentured servants and slaves; Indians and their conflict with white culture
- Local Rebellions–Lawne’s Creek Rising (1673), Bacon’s Rebellion (1674), and the Plant-Cutter Riots (1681-83)
- Virginia Life and Life Styles including religion and leisure pursuits.
An amazing variety of sample documents are included for each section, taken directly from the records themselves. With full citations for each one. And a full name index just may include the very ancestor you have sought for so many years.
The suggested readings will give you both a context in which to understand the documents and the jurisdictions which produced them. Some documents include lists of of names as they appear in the records.
When you finish studying the samples, you are ready to locate and search similar records for your own ancestors. This book is a guide to Virginia genealogy records–although the word genealogy is never mentioned.
Billings wanted to write a book that could be used as a text. He succeeded. Your favorite genealogist, Arlene Eakle http://www.arleneeakle.com
PS Run, don’t walk to your nearest book store and order your own copy of this helpful volume . Or order online at http://uncpress.unc.edu/