Paul,

Thanks.  That is about what I suspected.

There is a book called "A Place in Time" about the area that eventually 
became Middlesex Co., VA (that county was created about 1673, as I recall). 
This book is probably available at the LOVA, though I have to admit that I 
have not looked for it there yet.  This book was written by what appears to 
have been a respected college professor and his wife, and I understand that 
he died in Florida (I'm not sure about his wife's status).  There are some 
posts on the Middlesex Co., VA RootsWeb message board (circa 2001, as I 
recall) where the "posters" were hoping that the "background information" 
accumulated by the couple for this book could be donated to the LOVA (I have 
no idea if that ever happened).

In any case, the above book claims that a Francis Brown died "soon after" he 
co-owned land in 1652/1653 with a man named Oliver Seagar/Segar.  The book 
claims that Oliver was then left as the sole owner.  Some recent "internet 
research" on my part indicates that Oliver Segar died himself around 1658. 
Some researchers suspect, however, that the Francis Brown who was associated 
with Oliver Segar was actually the same Francis Brown who died in Essex Co., 
VA in 1691/1692 (no deeds were found, apparently, that ever transferred half 
of the land to Oliver (or anyone else) in that 1653+  time frame).  We were 
hoping that those transportation/land patent records might shed some light 
on the possible existance of TWO adult Francis Browns (father and son, 
perhaps, or perhaps totally unrelated) in that general area of VA in the 
mid-1600s.  I certainly would not think that a such a statement would have 
been made in the above book by a respected researcher and educator, without 
something substantial to "back it up."

Bill Davidson 

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