Carole D. Bryant asked about these three methods of acquiring land in
colonial Virginia.
 
You could, of course, also inherit land. Deeds and wills provided the
two methods by which people could obtain land from other people.
 
People could also obtain land from the king during the colonial period
or from the state government after independence. Grants and Patents are
actually two words for the same thing. During the colonial period the
books that record government grants of land to private people or to land
companies were called Patent Books, after independence they were called
Grants.
 
There is a good brief history of the origins of patents and grants and
of the process in the introduction that Robert Armistead Stewart wrote
for volume one of Nell Marion Nugent, Cavaliers and Pioneers, Abstracts
of Virgina Land Patents and Grants (Richmond, 1934), which the Library
of Virginia has repeatedly reprinted. It should be available in any
library where Virginia family history is being researched.
 
Brent Tarter
The Library of Virginia
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Please visit the Library of Virginia's Web site at
http://www.lva.virginia.gov
 
 
 

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