There are some peculiarities about the research strategy that the VCRP
agents used - and I comment on them in the introduction to Kneebone &
Kukla et al eds Guide to the VCRP Microfilm.
  ONE critically important fact that researchers using the Survey Reports
need to remember is that the first essential purpose of the Survey
Report was to order microfilm. The Survey Reports were NOT intended as
"abstracts" of the material. SO, any collection was almost exclusively
about Virginia, the agents in late 50s and throughout the 60s really had
no reason to go into much detail in the Survey Report about that
collection : If a bound volume was ALL about Virginia, one could simply
describe that volume and say film it.
Conversely if there were a handful of identifiable Virginia-related items
among a large mass of other stuff, then those items got a more detailed
description ... so they could be microfilmed.
The irony, of course, is that the specific detail of the Survey Reports as
microfilm orders can be inversely related to the amount of
Virginia-related material in the archive AND on the film.
  The real lesson for scholarship is to use the Survey Reports and index
and any other guides to manuscript collections and archives as tools to
get you to the microfilm -- which is where the real riches are!

Your comments about the Mease/MAYS/MAYES/Maies entries demonstrates a
SECOND reality - familiar to all experienced archival researchers and no
less true about the VCRP survey reports, indexes, and microfilm :
Subject headings always more problematic than name entries : if you know
the names of people involved in your subject, you have a greater chance of
finding information about that subject than with keywords and subjects.

In short, without for a moment under-valuing the VCRP film and its related
guides and finding aids, you have a good chance of coming across bits of
new and useful information.  A few years ago, for example, I was working
with the catalogue of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin looking
for stuff about the Louisiana Purchase - there wasn't anything new to
found via subject entries - but when I ran through my list of players I
ended up with some wonderful documents that were very pertinent...... And
again the real lesson for scholarship is to use finding aids as tools to
get you to the manuscripts, books, or microfilm where the real riches are.


Jon Kukla

> Thanks very much John for your prompt reply. I am
> going to London soon and will report if I find
> anything "new."
>
> I have found some items in records such as the
> published excerpts of papers of Queen Elizabeth, James
> I and others that have Virginia connections apparently
> not realized by the VCRP researchers.
>
> On the other hand, two depositions - indexed in the
> VCRP but not copied and microfilmed - made in London
> in January 1624/5 by Reverend William Mease (first
> minister at St. John's, Hampton) and his then wife
> Margry (indexed as "Mace") give significant details
> about themselves and several events in Virginia not
> published anywhere else. Included are the facts that
> Mease moved from Hampton to Henricus Citie, where he
> was a/the minister at the time of the March 22, 1621/2
> native uprising and that Margry was one of the
> "maidens for Virginia" (surname unknown because she
> came aboard one of the first two such ships, for which
> records have not survived).
>
> Hopefully, more such gems may yet be found.
>
> Mease is the "traditional" ancestor of the quite large
> MAYS/MAYES family founded by William Maies (Reverend
> Mease did have such a son) in Southside Charles County
> (now Prince George County) ca. 1640-1650. Whether this
> is acurate may or may not ever be learned.
>
> Interested persons may wish to respond directly to me
> and/or to read my article about Reverend Mease in the
> August/September 2001 issue of "Tidewater Virginia
> Families."
>
> Joe Chandler Jr
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
>
>
> --- Jon Kukla <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Right offhand (based on some familiarity with the
>> VCRP over the years) I'd
>> suggest:
>>
>> One - the VCRP surveyors did a pretty thorough job
>> in the major English
>> archives over the course of 50 years - I'm quite
>> confident that they found
>> what was there.
>>
>> Two - Notice the dates that are "missing" - they
>> correspond with the
>> English Civil Wars, Commonwealth, and Protectorate -
>> and the resumption of
>> record-keeping fits roughly with the Restoration of
>> the Stuarts, passage
>> of the Navigation Act that created, and the
>> Anglo-Dutch Wars that excluded
>> Holland from the tobacco trade - in short with
>> creation of the
>> 18th-century British Atlantic empire and its
>> administrative mechanisms...
>>
>> For that matter, the start date of 1639 corresponds
>> with the first real
>> round of administrative mechanisms for royal
>> colonies linked to Sir
>> Francis Wyatt...
>>
>> Jon Kukla
>>
>>
>> > Dear readers,
>> >
>> > This is the 3rd time I have published this inquiry
>> over the last 6
>> months or so and no one has replied -  not even
>> someone from the
>> Virginia State
>> > Archives/Library where these records are housed.
>> >
>> > Can/will anyone answer these question:
>> >
>> > There are large gaps in the Port Books that have
>> been copied and placed
>> on microfilm at the Archives as part of the Virginia
>> Colonial Records
>> Project.
>> >
>> > For instance, there are Port Book records for ca.
>> 1639/40/41 and then in
>> the 1670s and 1690s.
>> >
>> > The FHC in Salt Lake City has an index of Port
>> Books -
>> > the years and ports, not personal names -  of
>> English
>> > Port Books from well before 1600 until well after
>> > 1700.
>> >
>> > QUESTION: What accounts for the gaps in the Port
>> Book
>> > records that have been copied for the VCRP?
>> >
>> > (1) Are the records copied for the VCRP the only
>> ones
>> > that have Virginia connections from 1600-1700?
>> >
>> > - or -
>> >
>> > (2) Do the Port Books - especially London - have
>> the
>> > kind of gaps suggested by my experience above?
>> >
>> > Thanks!
>> >
>> > Joe Chandler Jr
>> > Alexandria
>> >
>> > To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe,
>> please see the instructions
>> > at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>> Dr. Jon Kukla, Executive Vice-President
>> Red Hill - The Patrick Henry National Memorial
>> 1250 Red Hill Road
>> Brookneal, Virginia 24528
>> www.redhill.org
>> Phone 434-376-2044 or 800-514-7463
>>
>> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please
>> see the instructions
>> at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
>>
>
> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
> at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
>
>


Dr. Jon Kukla, Executive Vice-President
Red Hill - The Patrick Henry National Memorial
1250 Red Hill Road
Brookneal, Virginia 24528
www.redhill.org
Phone 434-376-2044 or 800-514-7463

Fax 434-376-2647

- M. Lynn Davis, Office Manager
- Karen Gorham-Smith, Associate Curator
- Edith Poindexter, Curator

To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html