last page update: Jul. 30, 2021
Ron.V| Early
morning on 29 Jul 2021 I was browsing the net looking for Surry County,
Colonial Virginia records to see if I could find listings for our
earliest known ancestor, John Vincent (d.1698). In the records of Maud Kelly, it was clear she knew of this John Vincent but she doesn't appear to have known anymore than what is found in Order of First Families 1 . MARY VINSEN Order of First Families by Mr. Brayton mentions that John Vincent had a daughter named "Mary" who was the granddaughter of John Dobe. I could not find scans of original documents. All I could find for any of the records mentioned on this page where transcriptions, etc. However, Here's the record that mentions John Dobe:  This transcript was included in a book of abstracts of wills of Surry County. This only shows that Mary "Vensen" was his granddaughter and doesn't establish her relationship with John Vincent (d.1698). However, it does say she had a child named "Thomas" and that they were still living when the will was written in 1716/17. If anyone can locate the original records, they could obtain an image of the will in Book 7, p.415. JOHN VINCENT'S BIRTH YEAR? One of the most difficult things to establish has been the Date of Birth for our John Vincent (d.1698). Unless there was more than one John Vincent living in Surry County at the time (there could have been several, for all we know), I did stumble across one whose year of birth is mentioned. It was found in a book called Wills & Administrations of Surry County, Virginia: 1671-1750. Again it is an abstract. This may have been the same source for the above record of John Dobe, I don't know. Here's what it says for this John Vinson's birth year:  I apologize for the poor quality of this image. It's the best I could get. Note that it mentions one "John Vinson, aged 40 years, or thereabouts." If we could find evidence to prove this is our John Vincent (d.1698), we can assume he was born c.1635 by subtracting 40 years from the date of this record which was 1675. Also, if we subtract 1635 from the assumed year of his death, we learn that he lived to the ripe old age of 63, uncommon for the times but not unheard of. Again, if this is our John, who then is Joseph Vinsen and is he related? Perhaps an image copy of Surry County Wills, Book 2, p. 104 could tell us more. SURRY COUNTY RECORDS While searching the net for similar records, I came across a couple of links to a book called Surry County Records, 1652-1684. One was located at Ancestry.com. CLICK HERE for the link. The title page of this book at Ancestry gave no indication as to who wrote the book. It was blank except for the title. CLICK HERE for an image of the title page I downloaded from Ancestry (NOTE: the image will open in a new window). However, I did find a portion of the same book elsewhere and, though badly marked, it gives the author and publisher as well as the publication date. CLICK HERE to view this title page (the image will open in a new window). This copy was from the Birmingham, AL Public Library. It was part of a 31-page PDF file created by someone doing research on Families of Walter O. Holliman. There was a download available so I downloaded it and posted it on this site. CLICK HERE to open a new window where you can view / download a PDF copy. Keep in mind, this PDF is only of pages selected by another family. Pages therein may or may not refer to our Vincents. VIRGINIA WILLS AND ADMINISTRATIONS, AN INDEX 2 Another book I discovered, though not very useful, was an "Index" of VA wills from 1632 to 1800. This book DID NOT contain the actual wills (as mentioned above for Surry County), just an alphabetical list of who was mentioned in them and for the entire Colony / State. It is not a "computer searchable" file. It is a PDF file created from image scans of the contents. However, the contents are listed: 1) in Alphabetical Order by surname, then 2) by county. Here's what it has for "Vincent" and "Vinson":
No other variant spellings were mentioned except for one "Vincento, Nicholas 1654 i" (where the letters "w" = "Will" and "i" = "Inventory"). This index seems to confirm that John Vinson of Surry County died shortly after he made his will in 1698 and was dead by 1699. It also confirms that his 2nd wife, Katherine was dead by 1705 and his son Peter died by 1728 as mentioned in Order of First Families by Brayton. Several questions arise: 1) How did Mr. Brayton know that Thomas died in 1716 and that his will was lost? Perhaps he explains this in his book. I have not researched this. 2) Who are the other Vincents / Vinsons mentioned in other counties and are they related -- especially "Wm. 1654" of Norfolk, "Henry 1666" and "Jos. 1701" of Westmoreland? SURRY COUNTY RECORDS 1652-1684 Since the copy of Surry County Records 1652-1684 at Ancestry.com was searchable, I did so. I first downloaded the index page that mentions Vincents and their variant spellings. CLICK HERE to open a new window and see the full page image or see below for a closeup of the Vincents only:  (CLOSE UP of Vincents) According to the index, the following persons appear in Surry County, Colonial VA during this period: PAGE NAME DATE 56 Vinson, John 1665-05-29 77 Vincent, Jno 1680-08-11 [77 & 115 Mentions orphan of Francis Sowerby] 105 Vinson, Jno 1676/7-03-18 109 Vinsent, John 1678-11-05 [50 acres from will of Capt.Wm. Corker] 115 Vincent, Jno 1681-06-15 [INDEX says "Vinsent"] 116 Vincent, John 1681-03-06 Click each record in this index to open a new window and see an image of that page which I downloaded from Ancestry.com. SUMMARY What can we learn from all this? Who knows? Answers to some questions as well as obvious errors will no doubt be revealed upon closer inspection. That's why I spent several hours doing this research and creating these web pages. Hopefully we'll spot errors and quickly correct them. I ask each of you to point these errors out, no matter how minor you think they are (including typos). I'll correct the text of this page to reflect your corrections which will be greatly appreciated. ~ Ron.V REFERENCES: 1- See pp. 493-515; Order of First Families of North Carolina -- Registry of Ancestors Vol. 1, compiled and copyrighted (1988, 2005) by John Anderson Brayton, Memphis, TN; pub. Cain Lithographers, Jackson, MS. CLICK HERE to open a new window for you to view / download these pages. 2- Virginia Wills and Administrations: 1632-1800 An Index, Compiled by Clayton Torrence. CLICK HERE to view / download this 488 page book. ** WARNING ** This is a very large file, almost 40MB. It will open in a new window but it will still take quite a while to download on slow connections. . |
