Texas Living Columnist Lloyd Bockstruck

09:45 AM CDT on Sunday, September 4, 2005

When the Virginia Company of London established the capital of its colony in America at Jamestown in 1607, it followed that the first Anglican parish in the New World would be known as James City Parish. A parish had to have land, a church building, an officiating minister, the necessary lay officials and a certain number of people. There were two levels of English local government: the county and the parish.

The parish administered religious affairs. While a parish could be coterminous with the boundaries of a county, that situation was not always so. Bristol Parish, for example, lay within parts of three different counties.

At the parish level were two types of record books: parish registers and vestry minutes. These are some of the oldest documents available for family historians, and they are some of the most valuable records because many of them did not survive the vicissitudes of time.

Virginia's Anglican records first appeared in print in the latter part of the 19th century. Three years ago, the vestry book of Southam Parish in Cumberland County was published. Now, The Albemarle Parish Vestry Book, 1742-1786 has been released. To have access to this important source is a researcher's delight.

In rural Virginia, boundaries between plantation owners were vague, and that led to disputes between adjoining property owners. In an effort to maintain harmony and to avoid clogging the courts with suits seeking to settle such conflicts, the vestry routinely walked the bounds of every property owner in the parish. The minutes of their perambulations constitute a veritable census of the inhabitants by neighborhood. By comparing these processionings, one can infer the time of death of a landowner, identify his widow or discover the names of sons who inherited the real estate.

The vestry also handled the expenses of the parish. The vestry cared for the widowed, infirm, insane, orphans and poor. It bore the expense of burial of the dead. The vestry, for example, paid William Moss for burying Thomas Laffoon on Nov. 27, 1747. While traditional genealogical relationships are more likely to be found in parish registers, such nuggets are to be found in the vestry books. The vestry also assessed taxes and maintained the church and chapels in the parish.

Albemarle Parish was born when Lawne's Creek Parish became extinct. It encompassed Virginia's Sussex County. The more than 6,500 people in this vestry book were from the counties of Surry and Sussex. Their offspring migrated farther west into southside Virginia and upper North Carolina.

You may order the book by calling 1-800-296-6687 or by remitting $38.50 plus $3.50 handling to Clearfield Co., 3600 Clipper Road, Suite 260, Baltimore, MD 21211.

Lloyd Bockstruck supervises the genealogy section of the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library in Dallas. Address questions to Family Tree, Texas Living section, The Dallas Morning News, P.O. Box 655237, Dallas, TX 75265.

E-mail texasliving@dallasnews.com