Hello Everyone,

I believe that the figures that Paul cites below on abstracts (40 percent),
etc., are way too high.  They might apply to Virginia pre about 1730 or about
when, for example, the Sparacios ended their abstracts in a number of Northern
Neck area counties.  There are many counties, ie Powhatan, founded 1767, for
which almost nothing has been abstracted at all in terms of deeds, wills, court
records.  There is one small volume that has abstracts of the first and maybe
second will books.  Online at the website is Carol Morisson's abstract of the
first Court Order Book., etc.   No deed abstract books, but some tax list and
census abstracts are published.  If you have something going on in Powhatan
it's to the courthouse or LVA/LDS microfilms you go.

Also, separately the early abstracts by Dorman/Weisiger (can't remember) of
Henrico County Court proceedings are not complete, but selective.  For example
in a search for the original of microfilms  for something else, I ran across
an instance reporting the failure of John Baugh and several others to appear at
church (ca 1680s).  This wasn't in the abstract.

I find all of these little mentions VERY important, not only to add "color"
to our ancestors, but because often when there are no wills, deed mentions,
etc., and a conclusion is made that a brother named  in several family
genealogies was a long standing error, because he isn't mentioned in wills, deeds, or
court order abstracts.   Well, many abstracters (not TLC which is/was one of
their virtues), leave out lists of jury members, complete lists of road workers,
minor items like fines for failure to attend church, etc.  And then, by gum,
there is a fellow with the name in the older genealogies, that has been panned
often by later researchers.   Many researchers make hard and fast conclusions
of the debunking variety, defended with great enthusiasm and emotion, based on
incomplete research of surrounding counties or known migration destinations.
My motto is there is always somewhere else to look -- the brother who moves
to Georgia and writes his Georgia will mentioning minor siblings in VA, etc.

My personal opinion is that for Virginia alone, and there ARE many on this
list who are searching in the late 1800s and 1900s, the total amount of records
abstracted or available transcribed in published form say pre 1900, is only 5
percent, with the amount on the internet in a complete form at less than 1
percent.   The total amount filmed by LDS probably only clocks in at around 40-50
percent.  These numbers all tumble way down again the further you go from the
original colonies, and the more rural the area.

However, I have found a lot of (selective) information IS available on the
internet if you do searches at google.com for something like the following:
Shelton Waller deed Pittsylvania.   This will pick up a number of mostly surname
websites that have these characters mixed in with their folks.    Another
trick is when you get your google or other search results to click on the cached
version, which will highlight in different colors your search terms.

Personal note:   if any of you have sent me personal emails or responses to
old posts over the last five weeks, I have most likely missed them and not
responded.  My mother passed away very peacefully at almost 88 years in mid June
after two relatively straight forward surgeries, from which she just couldn't
quite recover.

My apologies to any whom I did not respond.   Paul, if I didn't read your
original numbers correctly let me know.

Best Regards,
Janet (Baugh) Hunter




In a message dated 7/14/2004 9:07:47 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:


> Oh, surely you are correct, Joy, but your counties are as good a place to
> start as any for fundamental research.  What most fail to realize is that less
> than 40% of all the records we MIGHT one day want to use have been
> abstracted or otherwise made available to researchers, and of that 40%, less than 30%
> is yet available on the net.  So it is that if we read EVERYTHING on the net,
> we would have viewed something in the neighborhood of 12% of what is out
> there.
>



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