French Family Association

The Official Website of the Surname French

photo

St. Mary’s County Courthouse, Leonardtown, MD, with George Mason and George Washington

Chart #36, Hugh French Ist, 1636
St. Mary’s and Charles Co., MD
Westmoreland, Prince William,
Stratford, Fauquier, King George, Richmond, Culpeper, Northumberland, and Loudoun Counties, VA

Also Mason Co., KY; Pike Co., MO; and Independence Co., AR

This chart updated by Mara French on 5/22/08. Numbers in brackets [ ] refer to the bibliography at the end of this chart. An asterisk (*) shows continuation of that line. Send any corrections or additions to this chart to marafrench@mindspring.com. Revisions: 1991, 1997, 2008.

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The Headright System

Compiled by Bob Cawly

Major research sheds new light on headright research, by James W. Petty, who was awarded the top 2005 Donald Mosher Award for Virginia Research for his 35 years as a professional genealogist. See website:
http://www.heirlines.com/donald_mosher_award.html

“Petty explained that his work to date revealed that headright lists attached to land grants were the last record in the chain of records, and the earlier records---including the county certificates he is studying---may have preceded the land grant by three to thirty years. The number of county entries missing on the colony records means that historical estimates of colonial population based on Nugent's lists might be doubled. Petty has also determined that lists on the land patents were often compilations of many different headright certificates, meaning it is likely that none of the people on any given patent list even knew each other, much less came to America on the same ship.”

Colonial Virginia Headright System

In order to encourage immigration into the colony, the Virginia Company, meeting in a Quarter Court held on 18 November 1618, passed a body of laws called Orders and Constitutions which came to be considered "the Great Charter of privileges, orders and laws" of the colony. Among these laws was a provision that any person who settled in Virginia or paid for the transportation expenses of another person who settled in Virginia should be entitled to receive fifty acres of land for each immigrant.

The right to receive fifty acres per person, or per head, was called a headright. The practice was continued under the royal government of Virginia after the dissolution of the Virginia Company, and the Privy Council ordered on 22 July 1634 that patents for headrights be issued.

The headright system was introduced as a means to solve the labor shortage. It provided the following:

·      Colonists already residing in Virginia were granted two headrights, meaning two tracts of 50 acres each, or a total of 100 acres of land.

·      New settlers who paid their own passage to Virginia were granted one headright. Since every person who entered the colony received a headright, families were encouraged to migrate together.

·      Wealthy individuals could accumulate headrights by paying for the passage of poor individuals. Most of the workers who entered Virginia under this arrangement came as indentured servants — people who paid for their transportation by pledging to perform five to seven years of labor for the landowner.

The ability to amass large plots of land by importing workers provided the basis for an emerging aristocracy in Virginia. Plantation owners were further enriched by receiving headrights for newly imported slaves.

The implementation of the headright system was an important ingredient in Virginia’s success. Land ownership gave many people a reason to work hard, with the assurance that they were providing for their own futures, not that of the company.

Although seldom used during the eighteenth century, the procedure remained in effect until the passage of an act in the session begun in May 1779 which, in adjusting and settling titles to lands, gave a period of twelve months from the end of the legislative session for such rights to be claimed or be considered forfeited.

A person who was entitled to a headright usually obtained a certificate of entitlement from a county court and then took the certificate to the office of the secretary of the colony, who issued the headright, or right to patent fifty acres of land. The holder of the headright then had the county surveyor make a survey of the land and then took the survey and the headright back to the capital to obtain a patent for the tract of land. When the patent was issued, the names of the immigrants, or headrights, were often included in the text of the document.

As valuable properties, headrights could be bought and sold. The person who obtained a patent to a tract of land under a headright might not have been the person who immigrated or who paid for the immigration of another person. Headrights were not always claimed immediately after immigration, either; there are instances in which several years elapsed between a person's entry into Virginia and the acquisition of a headright and sometimes even longer between then and the patenting of a tract of land.

The headright system was subject to a wide variety of abuses from outright fraud to multiple claims by a merchant and a ship's captain to a headright for the same immigrant passenger. Some prominent merchants and colonial officials received headrights for themselves each time they returned to Virginia from abroad. As a result of the abuses and of the transferable nature of the headrights, the system, which may have been intended initially to promote settlement and ownership of small plots of land by numerous immigrants, resulted in the accumulation of large tracts of land by a small number of merchants, shippers, and early land speculators.

One source of names for early residents is the Virginia Land Patents. Any individual responsible for the transportation of a person above ten years of age to the Virginia Colony was eligible for 50 acres of land as a headright. When filing for land patents before 1715 it was the practice to list the names of the individuals for whose "heads" the rights were being claimed.

It is important to recognize that these claims do not indicate that the individual was indentured or was a servant of the claimant. In fact, headrights were bargained in the seventeenth century in much the same way that mortgages and insurance policies are bartered in the modern economy.

The presence of a name as a headright in a land patent, then, establishes that a person of a certain name had entered Virginia prior to the date of the patent; but it does not prove when the person immigrated or who was initially entitled to the headright.

A merchant or craftsman traveling to and from the continent would earn a new headright upon each voyage to the colony from England. He might claim his 50 acres if he cared to turn to farming, but more likely would sell the headright for cash to the already established land owners who were interested in acquiring more land. Before 1715 they were not allowed to purchase land and could only get it through the purchase of headrights or paying for the transport of individuals. Paying for the transport encumbered one with the individual when he arrived, so the purchase of headrights was a preferred and lucrative manner in which to acquire land. The seller of the right received cash which was in itself a valuable commodity to the merchant or craftsman.

Thus a landowner may claim a headright for a person he had not even met, and who never paid to get here, but arrived in Virginia where labor was in high demand to his advantage and possibly with no indenture whatever. He might never see the land that accrued to his headright.

In 1714 William Byrd II argued before the Colonial Board that the cost of the government in Virginia, which had become a burden on the King, could be defrayed by selling the land outright at 5 shillings for 50 acres. This produced a profound effect on the colony and by 1755 almost all of present Virginia had been claimed, mostly by descendants of the early colonists. Persons arriving in years after that were obligated to purchase land from the conglomerate landholders and speculators at the market rate.

For extended analyses of Virginia land policies, see Fairfax Harrison Virginia Land Grants (New York, 1925, Richmond, 1979); Robert A. Stewart's introduction in volume one of Nell M. Nugent's Cavaliers and Pioneers (Richmond, 1934); Daphne Gentry's introduction in volume four of Dennis Hudgins' Cavaliers and Pioneers (Richmond, 1995); and the introduction to the Virginia Land Office Inventory, first published by the Library of Virginia in 1973.

The Virginia Land Office

(Research Library of Virginia - Research Notes Number 20)

Introduction

The records of Virginia’s Land Office constitute the oldest continuous series of state records held by the Library of Virginia. Because of the unfortunate loss of so many of Virginia’s early colonial records, these remain an especially vital historical and genealogical resource. They contain information about such topics as land title, geographical place names, immigration, and family relationships available in no other source. The system of land acquisition from the Virginia government to individuals evolved over time.

These changes, when combined with the steps required to acquire legal title to this land, can make for a complicated process to understand. The records for the Land Office are especially complete from 1779 and later, but are much less complete for the colonial period. These include recorded copies of patents and grants issued for vacant lands from 1623 to the present, preliminary documents related to the issuance of grants made after 1779, bounty land documents relative to land given for military service during the French and Indian and Revolutionary wars, and correspondence sent to the register of the office. There are also records for the Northern Neck proprietary, which will be described in a separate research note. An excellent starting point for understanding the Land Office and its records is Daphne S. Gentry and John S. Salmon, Virginia Land Office Inventory (3rd ed., 1981). 1607—1775

The acquisition of land with its abundant resources was one of the primary motivations behind the settlement of Virginia. The 1606 charter of the Virginia Company of London and the renewal charter of 1609 granted vast areas of land stretching as far west as the Pacific Ocean. Initially land granted to stockholders and settlers was held in common, but beginning in 1614 small private grants began to be made to settlers and investors. Very few copies of grants made prior to 1624 are extant.

In that year Virginia became a royal colony, and all land issued was in the name of the crown and by the royal governor. A method of private land distribution quickly evolved, known as the headright system. Each person who entered Virginia to settle was given fifty acres, but in practice the land was awarded to the person who paid the cost of transportation of the emigrant. An annual quitrent was to be paid to the crown for each fifty acres owned, and the land was to be settled and cultivated within three years.

The headright system remained the chief method of land acquisition in Virginia for almost a century. This system involved several steps resulting in the issuance of a patent (the colonial word for grant), which conferred legal title to the land. The potential patentee had first to present proof to the county court that a stated number of persons had been imported into the colony at his expense. Virtually no records are extant of this proof. The court issued a certificate of importation, which was in turn presented to the secretary of the colony in Williamsburg, who then issued a right. This was presented to the county surveyor. The land was surveyed and all papers were returned to the secretary. If all was in order, then a patent to the land signed by the governor was issued to the patentee, and a copy was entered into a patent book. Most patents typically contain the name of the king or queen in whose name the patent is issued, the name of the patentee, the size, location, and description of the land, and the date. Information concerning the land title, the patentee, and adjoining landowners may be included. The persons who are claimed as headrights are also named, and these names constitute the best surviving proof of immigration to Virginia in its early years.

The persons brought to Virginia as headrights received no land, only those who paid their own passage. The right to land due by importing headrights could be sold (assigned) to another person before the patent was issued. Patents were often issued years and even decades after the names of headrights were submitted, and the headright did not necessarily reside on the land described in the patent. Patents were often re-patented if they had lapsed or to clarify or strengthen the title. An excellent discussion of these points is found in Richard Slatten, “Interpreting Headrights in Colonial Virginia Patents: Uses and Abuses,” National Genealogical Society Quarterly 75 (September 1987): 169–179.

By the first quarter of the eighteenth century, the demand for land led to the establishment of the treasury right, which allowed the purchase of land directly from the crown. This quickly became the preferred method of land acquisition. Governor Alexander Spotswood issued a proclamation that prohibited patents exceeding four thousand acres. Various land companies and individuals were occasionally permitted to patent hundreds of thousands of acres by the colony’s Executive Council, notably the Loyal and Greenbrier Companies and Benjamin Borden, John Vanmeter, and Robert Beverley. This land, located in the western part of the colony, continued to be surveyed and sold until 1799, and titles to it were often in dispute. Further complications ensued from King George III’s Proclamation of 1763, which prohibited settlement in the Trans-Allegheny region. A few records related to the Loyal and Greenbrier Companies exist in the Land Office.

Colonial Virginia patents are almost complete from 1623 to 1776, and exist in a variety of formats. Patents were recorded in record books, and these are available on microfilm at the Library and through interlibrary loan. These images are also available on the Library’s Web site, where they are searchable by name. Cavaliers and Pioneers is an excellent multi-volume set of printed abstracts for patents, 1623–1782.

All of the documents that accompanied the patents, including warrants and surveys, were annually destroyed prior to 1779. Some counties (created both before and after 1779) have survey books among their records. 1779—1948 The American Revolution brought much change to Virginia, including a new state government. Because of the upheaval, no grants were made between 1775 and 1779, when an act establishing the Land Office was passed. A register, elected by the General Assembly, was to administer the distribution of Virginia’s waste and inappropriated lands. This system remained the same until the mid-twentieth century.

Under the act a person could purchase as much vacant land as desired by payment to the treasurer of a fee—£40 for each one hundred acres, later changed to dollars and cents. The treasurer issued a receipt for this payment, which was presented to the state auditor, who in turn issued a certificate noting the amount of land to which the person was entitled. The certificate was then taken to the register of the Land Office, who issued a warrant, called a treasury warrant, authorizing any surveyor to lay off the quantity of land specified. There are both old (1779–1783) and new (1787–1952) treasury warrants, each series consecutively numbered beginning with one. Treasury warrants contain the name of the warrantee, the amount of acreage and money paid for the warrant, the warrant number, to whom the land was ultimately granted, the reference to the grant book and page number, and the name of the county in which the land was granted. These are available on microfilm at the Library.

The process continued with the warrantee presenting the warrant to the county surveyor where the land was located. The land was surveyed and the warrantee returned the warrant, survey, and other related papers to the Land Office. Six months were allowed for caveats (or objections) to the survey. If none were entered, the plat and certificate of survey were recorded and the grant was signed by the governor, recorded, and the original delivered to the grantee. Recorded grants from 1779–1948 are also available on the Library’s Web site, on microfilm at the Library, and through interlibrary loan. Survey books are also available at the Library. There are also records related to caveats.

At any time in the grant process after the treasury warrant was purchased, the purchaser could assign (sell) the right to part or all of the land described in the warrant. These assignments and other papers related to individual grants after 1779 are known as plats and certificates, and are held in the original at the Library of Virginia, filed by the date of the grant and the name of the grantee. These are continuous from 1779–1929. The Act of 1779 also provided for the awarding of bounty land for Revolutionary War military service.

This process did not become operative until the end of the war in 1783, but bounty land promised in 1763 for French and Indian War service by soldiers in the two Virginia Regiments was finally allotted in 1779–1780. Soldiers or their heirs gave proof of service in their local county court, and a bounty warrant was issued by the Land Office. A list of soldiers who received land for French and Indian War service is found in Lloyd D. Bockstruck, Virginia’s Colonial Soldiers (1988). Microfilm of the land certificates is available at the Library.

The same act that allowed land bounty for French and Indian War service also allowed the settling of land claims outstanding from the colonial period to 1779, especially for land which had been settled but for which no legal title had been made. Some of this land was in the District of West Augusta, an area between modern day West Virginia and Pennsylvania, and also on the western frontier of the state. Persons who had settled on unclaimed land prior to 1778 were eligible to obtain preemption (prior settlement) certificates for four hundred acres, and up to one thousand acres of additional land. Commissioners were appointed to apportion the land. Records related to these preemption claims are available at the Library, and include certificates, which are indexed, and registers, which are not.

The process for receiving land for Revolutionary War service required several steps. Soldiers (or their heirs) were eligible for land if they served in the Continental Line, State Line, or State Navy for three years or longer, or if they died in service. After submitting proof of their unit, rank, and length of service (known as the bounty warrant), a numbered land office military certificate was issued. This in turn was followed by the issuance of a numbered military land warrant, which was presented to the surveyor of the Virginia Military Lands in Ohio or Kentucky, where the lands were located. (At this time the warrantee could also file an entry with the county clerk for specific acreage to be set aside for surveying, and some counties retain entry books among their records.) A grant conferring legal title was then issued by the state. At any point in the process after service was proven the land could be assigned (sold) to someone else.

Cavaliers and Pioneers: Virginia Land Patents

by Emily Croom, November 1998

What a treasure for researchers! Literally thousands of ancestors lurk in the records of the old Virginia Land Office, housed since 1948 in the archives of the Library of Virginia. The 140-plus volumes of records fall basically into four groups: colonial patents and grants; deeds issued by Thomas Lord Fairfax, proprietor of the Northern Neck, beginning in 1690; grants by the Commonwealth of Virginia after 1779; and grants of Northern Neck lands after the Revolution.

The long-established idea that all English land was held by the Crown also governed distribution of land in colonial Virginia, first through the Virginia Company of London under its royal charter (1607-1624) and then through the king’s officials in the colonial government (1624 forward). The year 1624 marked the revocation of the charter of the Virginia Company and the beginning of royal administration of the colony.

The patent was the instrument by which land was transferred from the Crown to an individual. (The same principle governed the distribution of federal land from the United States government to private owners from the late eighteenth century forward.) During the early colonial period, Virginia settlers qualified for patents under basically two systems: headrights and treasury rights.

In the seventeenth century, most of the patents were issued under the headright system. The London Company and then the Crown allowed persons who paid their own passage to the colony to obtain fifty acres each and an additional fifty acres for each person whose way they paid. For example, in November 1651, Henry Soane received a patent for 297 acres in James City County for transporting six persons: himself, Henry Soane Jr., Judeth (sic) Soane Sr., Judeth Soane Jr., John Soane, and Eliza. (sic) Soane (Cavaliers and Pioneers, Vol 1:222). This abstract sends up a red flag for the genealogist to investigate the possibility or likelihood that these persons were Henry’s wife and children.

These headright claims could be held for months or years before being used or could be transferred to another individual, or assignee. In the example above, therefore, we cannot know from this source alone when Henry Soane first arrived in the colony or how long he waited to make his claim. When Daniell Coleman and Samuel Williams received 600 acres in 1703 for transporting twelve individuals, all of different surnames, the patentees themselves were not counted as headrights (Cavaliers and Pioneers, Vol 3: 74). We may believe, therefore, that Coleman and Williams were not new arrivals, but we cannot tell (1) whether they had paid passage for these headrights or simply acquired the rights from someone else, (2) whether they had any personal acquaintance with the headrights, (3) when the headrights arrived, (4) whether the headrights were new immigrants or settlers returning from a trip abroad, or (5) where any of the headrights were living in 1703. All we know for certain is that the patentees and the headrights were in Virginia by the date of the patent. Headrights included persons of all classes and stations: gentry, nobility, yeomanry, merchants, students, indentured servants, relatives, family servants, and, until 1699, Negroes.

In 1699, the government renewed treasury rights as a method of obtaining land without bringing in settlers. Under this system a person could purchase fifty acres from the government for five shillings. This program accounted for most of the Virginia patents issued in the eighteenth century.

The law required that the patentee, in order to keep his land, had to settle the land within three years and pay an annual quitrent to the crown, one shilling for each fifty acres owned. Settling was accomplished by “seating and planting.” Seating meant building a house and keeping livestock; planting meant clearing and cultivating the required number of acres, at first one acre per fifty and later three of each fifty owned.

Fortunately for researchers, most land patents from 1624 forward survived, at least long enough to be copied into the patent books as we know them. This process of transcription began in 1683, and it is these copies we read in the land office records. Some of them are written in that wonderful seventeenth century style handwriting, with its “backward” es and “old style” capital letters. The preliminary documents created in the process of obtaining the patent (certificates or warrants, surveys, and plats) no longer exist, unless the county kept a record of the survey.

These valuable records now exist in three forms: books, microfilm, and computer database available on the Internet.

The books, Cavaliers and Pioneers, are, in 1998, a five-volume set of abstracts covering patents and grants from the earliest to 1749. Two more volumes are planned. Usually, the abstracts give the patentee’s name and patent date; the size and location of the land, including adjoining neighbors; and, when applicable, the names of the persons brought into the colony whose passage qualified the applicant for headrights. The later abstracts also may mention the kind of patent being issued: new land, old land, part new and part old, resurveyed land, marsh or swamp land, lapsed land, or escheat land. Lapsed land was land that, once patented, had not been settled within the required three years and had reverted to the crown. Escheat land was land whose owner had died without heirs or, on rare occasions, had been convicted of a felony.

The published books have thorough indexes that offer the researcher a variety of options in using the abstracts. Most genealogists use the indexes to identify ancestors by surname and given name, to find their patents, or to learn where they are mentioned in patents of other people. For example, ancestors who had their passage to Virginia paid by someone else may be listed among headrights or “transported” persons. Ancestors may also be listed as adjoining landholders in a neighbor’s patent.

The indexes also facilitate the study of “neighborhoods” when we want to study the cluster of an ancestor’s relatives, neighbors, and associates. Since the abstracts note the bodies of water which form boundaries for much of the patented land, researchers can look up these features in the index and discover other landowners along the same bodies. The index covers creeks, branches, rivers, swamps and marshes, ponds, and springs, as well as roads and paths, counties, parishes, plantations, towns, and any other geographic names in the land descriptions.

Researchers may well want to begin with the abstract books to identify any ancestors who are included. Then, in Volume 4, pages xv to xxxvi, are the forms used for the different kinds of patents (escheat, resurveyed, new land, etc.). It is helpful to photocopy the one appropriate to each ancestor’s patent. It is both interesting and wise for us as researchers to look at the “originals” on microfilm; they are the primary source. Since some of the microfilmed patent books are faded, torn, or otherwise difficult to read, the photocopied formats and published abstracts facilitate our reading and understanding.

The patents read much like deeds. They give the name and often the residence of the patentee, the number of acres in the acquisition, its county and boundary descriptions, the former patentee if applicable, and the patent date. Like deeds, the patents also spell out the rights and privileges that go along with the land, including “hunting hawking fishing fowling and all other profits commodities and hereditaments whatsoever...to the same...belonging or anywise appertaining.” The documents also name any headrights attached to the transaction.

The complete microfilm set at the Library of Virginia encompasses patents from 1623 to 1948, of which Clayton Library has 12 rolls, covering the period 1623-1730. Each roll of microfilm reproduces one or two of the original patent books. Most of the patent books begin with indexes. The index entry gives the patentee’s name, the number of acres, and the page number where the document is found.

From the Library of Virginia home page on the Internet (http://leo.vsla.edu), researchers can access databases for the Northern Neck grants (1690-1874), copies of grants not called for (1639-1860), original patents and grants (1728-1933), index to land patents and grants (1623-1980), patents (1623-1774), index to land patents (Vol. 1-42), index to Charles City and Prince George County surveys, and abstracts of patents and grants by county, including some counties now in Kentucky and West Virginia. From a surname index, a searcher can read abstract cards for the patents and, if the user’s computer has the capability, images of the patents themselves. This database is an important one of a growing number of “real research” opportunities on the Internet.

In Virginia, the “Ancient Planters” and adventurers were the earliest arrivals who came between 1607 and 1624 and who, for us, largely remain nameless. So many had died from hunger, disease, accidents, and a 1621 Indian massacre that by early 1622 it was estimated that fewer than a thousand were left. Most of these survivors had arrived after 1616, and some were landholders. The introduction to Volume 1 of Cavaliers and Pioneers lists known Ancient Planters who arrived mostly between 1607 and 1616 and were still living in 1624.

The land patents form a remarkable record of immigration to colonial Virginia, especially since passenger lists and other records of immigration are rarities before 1820. They are also a valuable tool in the study of ancestors’ land transactions, holdings, and neighborhoods. In Houston, we are fortunate to have access to all three forms of these documents at Clayton Library.

Bibliography

·      Nugent, Nell Marion, ed. Cavaliers and Pioneers: Abstracts of Virginia Land Patents and Grants, 1623-1800, 3 vols. Vol. 1, Richmond: Dietz Printing Co., 1934. Vols. 2-3, Richmond: Virginia State Library, 1977, 1979. See introductions. Call number at Clayton Library: Gen 975.5 N967 VA.

·      Hudgins, Dennis Ray, ed. Cavaliers and Pioneers, Vols. 4-5. Richmond: Virginia Genealogical Society, 1994. See introductions. Call number at Clayton Library: Gen 975.5 N967 VA.

·      Virginia Land Patents, 1623-1948. Microfilm by the Virginia State Library. Clayton Library has Books 1-13 (1623-1730). Call number at Clayton Library: C50D01.

·      Virginia Land Patents. Internet address:

·      Index and Abstracts of Patents and Grants. Microfilm by Virginia State Land Office. Organized by counties. Clayton Library has one roll, Accomack through Bedford counties.

For Further Study

·      Currer-Briggs, Noel. “Headrights and Pitfalls,” The Virginia Genealogist. 23-1 (Jan 1979): 45-46. Comparison of a 1667 and a 1672 list of same men, with different spellings of names, from Vol. 2: 27, 116 of Cavaliers and Pioneers.

·      McGinnis, Carol. Virginia Genealogy: Sources & Resources. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1993. Call number at Clayton Library: Gen 975.5 M145 VA.

·      Morgan, Edmund S. “Headrights and Head Counts: A Review Article,” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 80-3 (July 1972): 361-371. A review of White, Red, and Black: The Seventeenth Century Virginian by Wesley Frank Craven (Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1971) and a rethinking of some of Craven’s conclusions. A valuable article for anyone studying the early patents.

·      Robertson, William. “An Account of the Manner of Taking Up and Patenting Land... [written 1705],” The William and Mary Quarterly, 2nd series, 3-2 (April 1923): 137-142.

·      Robinson, W. Stitt, Jr. Mother Earth—Land Grants in Virginia, 1607-1699. Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1957. Jamestown Booklet No.5. Call number at Clayton Library: Gen 975.5 R666 VA.

Emily Croom is a member of Clayton Library Friends and the author of three widely known genealogy how-to and reference books: Unpuzzling Your Past, The Unpuzzling Your Past Workbook, and The Genealogist’s Companion & Sourcebook.

 

Southern Colonial Land Grants. MARYLAND (settled 1634)

Website: http://home.nc.rr.com/rwbaird/Misc/Landgrants.htm

All patents in Maryland came from the Lords Baltimore.  The Charter of Maryland granted to Cecilus Calvert on June 20, 1632, gave the authority to "assign, alien, grante, demise, or enfeoff" land.  The system was similar to that of Virginia.  Headright grants similar to the Virginia system were made from 1634-1680.  After 1680 all grants were fee-simple.  Warrants, surveys, and patents exist in the Maryland Archives, as does an “Index to Patents”. (This is why Hugh exercised his headright in 1680.)

Many early grants were large fiefdoms, in effect small Proprietorships.  These lands were re-leased to individuals, records of which may or may not exist.

Sources: 

The Early Settlers Of Maryland: An Index of Names of Immigrants Compiled from Records of Land Patents, 1633-1689, Gust Skordas, (Reprint Genealogical Publishing Co., 1995)

Above is supplemented by a multi-volume set by Peter Wilson Coldham, (Genealogical Publishing Co., 1996) containing essentially an index to patents:

·      Settlers of Maryland 1679-1700

·      Settlers Of Maryland 1701-1730

·      Settlers of Maryland 1731-1750

·      Settlers of Maryland; 1751-1765