Look to the Land: Understanding Land Records
By Carolyn L. Barkley
When I first began to attend genealogical conferences, I heard a speaker from the North Carolina State Archives say, “When I hear someone ask for marriage records or wills, I know that the individual is a genealogist; when I hear someone ask for land records, I know that the individual is a researcher.” That quote has resonated throughout my own research ever since.
I set myself a goal of reading all the Barkley deeds in the Northampton County Court House in Jackson, North Carolina (a job, I should admit, that isn’t complete yet). Very quickly, I discovered the value of taking on this type of comprehensive study. My research focused on the family of George Barkley who had migrated to Northampton County from Isle of Wight County, Virginia, sometime in the late 1760s. George’s son Rhodes had twelve children during the span of two marriages. I knew nothing more than the name of one of his sons, William Barkley. However, in transcribing the Barkley index entries from the deed indices, I found a deed dated 27 January 1818 for a William Barkley (grantor) and Rhoades [sic] Barkley (grantee). I immediately checked the recorded deed and experienced one of those golden moments of genealogical research. In this will, William Barkley of Sumter District, South Carolina, had returned to Northampton County to deed to “my father Rhoades Barkley of Northampton County, North Carolina…all my right, title, interest, and claim in a certain tract of land lying in County, on the north side of Wiccany swamp, being the land enured by Richard Allen Senr Patent granted him, and I the said Wm Barkly do for myself, my heirs jointly relinquish, warrant and ever defend my said wright unto him the said Rhoads Barkly…” I knew that Rhodes Barkley’s first wife had been Allice [sic] Allen, so William was probably talking about his grandfather, Richard Allen. From this one deed, I learned the residence of William at the time, learned that he may well have been a son of Rhodes’ first marriage, and opened an entirely new line of research on this Barkley family, this time in South Carolina. I was hooked on land research!
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