en continued unabated. But the
difficulties of the investigator in studying this period are also very
great. Yet it is possible, by examining the names that appear in the
land patents and wills, and comparing them with the list of headrights,
to arrive at fairly satisfactory results. We find that of the 131
persons listed in the York county wills from 1646 to 1659 no less than
twenty-five appear as headrights for others. Of these the major part
became landowners, some of them men of influence in Virginia.[4-54] The
Rappahannock wills for the years from 1656 to 1664 show a like result.
Thirty-nine persons appear in the records, of whom seven came in as
headrights.[4-55]

There is always the possibility of error in identifying these persons
for the recurrence of such names as Smith, Jones, Turner, Davis, Hall,
the monotonous repetition of a few common given names, and the universal
omission of middle names add greatly to our difficulties. Moreover,
mistakes are apt to occur because of the transfer of headrights by sale.
The free immigrant to whom was due fifty acres for his "personal
adventure" might not care to settle on the frontier where alone
unpatented land could usually be found. At times he sold his right and
purchased a plantation in some one of the older and more advanced
counties. It is not conclusively proved, then, that a certain person
came as a servant merely because he is listed as a headright. On the
other hand, the fact that it was the custom to set forth such transfers
clearly in the patent itself, justifies the conclusion that in the cases
where no statement of the kind is made, the headright for which the land
was granted usually came in under terms of indenture.

In Volume III of the land patents are listed in the years from 1635 to
1653 patents to fifty-seven persons in James City county.[4-56] Of these
no less than thirty-one are found also as headrights belonging to
others, although a duplication of names in several cases makes
identification uncertain. One person only claimed the fifty acres for
having paid his own passage to Virginia. When all possible allowance is
made for transfers of rights it is obvious that at this time freedmen
were still entering freely into the class of landowners.

An examination of the James City county patents in Volume IV, covering
the years from 1653 to 1663, leads to similar results, for of the
eighty-five names which appear there, forty-five are listed as
headri