PREFACE

 In Henrico Co., Virginia Land Patent Abstracts with Some Plat Maps, Selena Mayes DuLac provides a set of patent abstracts with maps of many of the patents. Given the difficulty of deciphering seventeenth century script and trying to plat the obscure (if any) boundaries found in many patents, these abstracts and maps are major time-savers. In many instances, they will assist researchers whose kinfolks’ names are found there to physically locate their ancestors’ land.

Many of the patents and maps in this volume are from the Henrico County part of the Bert Mayes archive. Mr. Mayes died suddenly and unexpectedly in early 1998, leaving behind a genealogical and historical archive containing more than 10,000 pages of materials – mostly patent and deed abstracts and maps from forty-plus Virginia counties and more than a dozen states. In no case, however, does the Mayes archive cover a whole county, much less a whole state. Ms. DuLac skillfully presents Mayes’ Henrico County abstracts and maps, supplementing them with her own abstracts and maps (using computer programming) of patents not included in the Mayes archive, so that the volume is believed to include all Henrico patents through 1719.

The every-name index to this volume is simply invaluable.

Ms. DuLac is a highly accomplished researcher in her own right. She has abstracted hundreds, if not thousands, of documents from the Mayes/Mays family that first settled in Southside Virginia and their descendants. She maintains a large, growing, computerized database. She has also placed many of her findings, together with

 Mayes/Mays materials already in the public domain, on the World Wide Web, free to all, at: <http://uneedspeed.net/~sdulac/PGMayesPublicDomain.htm>.

Bert Mayes’ archive began as a search for his Southside Virginia Mayes/Mays ancestors, but soon expanded to include many collateral lines of kinfolk, in-laws and neighbors. This family “traditionally” descends from the Reverend William Mease (spelled “Mays” by John Rolfe in 1616) who arrived at Jamestown in the first Gates expedition in August-September 1609. Leading scholars say he was the minister in Virginia during the Starving Time winter of 1609-10, was the founding minister of St. John’s Church and Parish at Kecoughtan (now City of Hampton), serving 1610/11-1621, and was minister and teacher at Henricus Citie (Henrico) and the College for Indian children 1621-22. He returned to London late in 1622, dying there in 1636.[i] Only now is his extraordinary career being rediscovered.

It was probably Reverend Mease’s son William Maies (ca. 1616-1668) who purchased 125 acres of land on the east shore of the Appomattox River in Prince George County (then Charles City County) from Edward Tunstall ca. 1640-5. Maies is the only proven founder of the Southside Virginia Mayes/Mays family, but it seems likely there were others. Due to lost records and the extreme lack of precision in early Charles City patents, it has been very difficult to physically locate patents there, but efforts continue. Last year, the author of this Preface located Maies’ 125 acres, the lower (i.e., down river) corner being at the point where Virginia State Highway 144 crosses the eastern shore of the Appomattox.[ii]

Some of William Maies’ descendants moved into Henrico County in the early 1700s, where they became prolific, owning many properties there in the eighteen century. Many of his descendants still reside there and throughout the surrounding area. Henrico is where Bert Mayes began large scale abstracting and mapping and it is there that Ms. DuLac has elected to begin publishing Bert's archive.

Negotiations are underway to arrange for organizing and indexing the entire Bert Mayes archive to make it available to the public in an appropriate facility. It is also hoped that many more of his abstracts and maps can be published, increasing their availability. To further these objectives, the archive has been entrusted to Ms. DuLac, Tracy H. Knauss and Joseph Barron Chandler, Jr. All are distant cousins of Bert Mayes and each other through their Mayes/Mays lines.

But, it is to Ms. DuLac to whom all credit is due for getting this excellent volume published.

Joseph Barron Chandler, Jr.

Washington, DC

May 27, 2004