The "headright" system, widely used for acquiring land in Virginia was never recognized in Virginia's Northern Neck. People wanting to acquire land there had to purchase a warrant and obtain a survey before they were issued a grant. The original Grant Books, now on microfilm, were used in making this collection of abstracts, and they generally provide the following information on some 5,000 Northern Neck residents: the name of the grantee, dates of warrant and survey, date and location of grant, amount of acreage, names of former owners/occupiers, names of adjacent property owners, and often the names of heirs and other family members.
This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.