a Isle of Wight project…
I jumped in with both feet back in the day with my first map. The subject of the map was my suspect ancestor with his patent near the Blackwater River in 1695. I had no idea of the difficulties but frankly did not care…I just wanted to know where he planted his tobacco. As it turns out, I had another ancestor who was also in early Isle of Wight… hence, I have a self serving fascination with that particular county. Some things I discovered while mapping were:
The old boys back in the day did not spel very good. And they rote funny.
They said what they meant and meant what they said… as best they could.
Their surveys were as accurate then as ours are now… but their base maps sucked.
Our inability to figure them out is our problem… they busied themselves with starting a country.
If you stood in their way they would likely, at the least, whip your ass… or arse, in their lingo.
With those observations being said, the IOW Historical Society has offered me access to some older records from a former Surry County Clerk. An extremely difficult area to map is the early boundary line area of Surry and Isle of Wight. I am curious how that gentleman tackled those early records that he seems to have had an intense interest in. He may have even mapped them (in his fashion, which I am curious about).
Recently Mike Smith contacted me with an offer to help… he lives in Virginia. He and I date back to at least 2017 with mutual mapping interests. So it seems he has an equal curiosity to partake in those records. Mike has likewise tackled that hideously complex early Colonial area in his fashion. In an attempt to show some of the complexities involved, here is a comparison of what I take to be our different “styles”. One obvious takeaway is obvious to any observer that we each were coming to different conclusions of “where” these patents actually fell in place. This is more art than science.
Click the Blue Filename under the graphic to open in a bigger window…
I am interested in perhaps re-tackling the Early IOW Map… with the stipulation to keep it Before the 1700s.
Mike Smith hangs out at his site… DigYourRoots.wordpress.com
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