By: C.G. Chamberlayne, Pub. 1931, Reprinted 2021, 281 pages, Index, ISBN #0-89308-247-3. King & Queen county was created in 1691 from New Kent County, VA. In turn King & Queen county is the parent county in part and/or in whole to: Caroline, King William, and Spotsylvania. King & Queen county has suffered 2 major fires which have destroyed most of its records. With this said, any book covering this BURNED county should be considered must. In preparing this book the author expended great care in following the original book in every eccentricity of spelling and abbreviation and in all mistakes. The VESTRY BOOK itself contains the names of approximately 3,500 individuals either as Vestry members or as those who had been appointed to procession land of property owners; apprentice young people to other in the parish for training in crafts or livelihoods; binding out young slaves for training; clothing and feeding and general care and welfare of the poor in their midst.

Cumberland Parish was coextensive with Lunenburg County from its inception in 1745, and Mr. Bell's history of the parish and transcription of its oldest vestry book are of the first importance. The vestry book itself is replete with records of birth, baptism, marriage, and death, as well as an abundance of land transactions. To this, Mr. Bell has added extensive genealogical sketches of families who furnished vestrymen to Cumberland Parish.

More than a half-century ago, C. G. Chamberlayne, under the sponsorship of the Virginia State Library, transcribed, edited, and indexed a number of original Virginia parish vestry books, four of which are reprinted here. While the dates of coverage and lengths of the volumes vary, they are nonetheless similar in terms of scope and content. Each volume contains the oldest known records pertaining to that parish, in most cases beginning only a few years following the parish's date of formation. Mr. Chamberlayne begins each vestry book with an Introduction that pieces together the formation of the parish and important milestones in its history from published and original sources. Facsimilies of pages from the original vestry books, maps, and photographs help to put each volume into greater context, moreover. Appended to the vestry books are brief lists of the various parish ministers, with an indication of their earliest date of service as found in the records. The transcriptions themselves, ranging from about 250 to more than 600 pages of text, relate to the following issues growing out of the business affairs of colonial parish vestries; namely, payments to persons for services rendered to the parish, oaths and lists of oath-takers, news of the arrival of ministers, the appointment of church wardens, issues related to indentured servants, lists of tithables, payment of salaries and other obligations, the formation of parish precincts with the names of the families apportioned therein, the warding of children, and so on. In each case, these four scarce collections of colonial church records establish the existence of thousands of Virginia inhabitants, each of whom is easily found in the index or indexes at the back of the book.

Joseph Vick, of Lower Parish, Isle of Wight County, Virginia and his Descendants, Volume 1 covers the first five generations of the descendants of Joseph Vick, who immigrated to America in the late 1600s. In addition to extensive, well-documented genealogical information, the book includes anecdotal historical information, references and foot notes. A center section includes illustrations and photographs of Vick descendants, lands and homes.

The bulk of this work consists of county-by-county lists of parishes within the Province of Quebec, and all known Catholic parishes are listed to 1900. Each list gives the names of all the parishes within that county, arranged in order of formation, with the date of the oldest records for that parish. A reference letter and name after the parish indicates the compiler and publisher of a marriage register for that parish, or whether the marriages for that parish may be found in the important Loiselles Marriage Index.

The Vestry Book of South Farnham Parish contains the processioning records of the parish from 1739 to 1779. This vestry book provides the names of the ministers, vestrymen, and clerks of the vestry. A history of the parish, parish officials, properties, t

Originally the parish vestry dealt with land processioning, care of the poor, apprenticeships and guardianships of orphans, levying of taxes, and other civil matters, as well as those relating to the running of the parish. Around 1785 the counties took over these civil functions and placed them under civil authorities.

Louisiana has sixty-four parishes, and many of them are as individual and different as the state itself is different from others in the Union. St. James Parish, a small parish of 249 square miles, is not only one of the oldest settlements in the state, but it is different in its population make-up and is important historically. Cabanocey . . . is a splendid history of the Parish of St. James. . . . Lillian C. Bourgeois captured the spirit that animates the population, which is descended from French, Spanish, Acadian, German, and Creole peoples. Bourgeois writes of the population's customs, beliefs, language differences, and folklore. Cabanocey is not a collection of dry facts and dates; rather, it vividly describes how, more than one hundred years ago, the people of St. James Parish lived, who they were, and what they contributed to their parish and their state. Before the Civil War, St. James Parish was the educational center of Louisiana, and Jefferson College was the first important college in the state. Founded in 1830, it had fine buildings, a well-equipped laboratory, and an impressive library. The Convent of the Sacred Heart (1835) for girls was well-known by prominent families in Louisiana, Mexico, and Central America, who sent their daughters there. Cabanocey contains St. James genealogies and thousands of names of early settlers, including the soldiers, taxpayers, officials, prominent families, and the first settlers and their children. From the early censuses and church and court records, descent is traced for many names. The censuses of 1766, 1769, and 1777 are complete and were obtained from the archives in Seville, Spain.