"In this reprint edition the contents [of the original 34 volumes] have been rearranged, re-typed, and consolidated in three hardcover volumes, each with its own master index."--Title page verso.

"The data abstracted herein have been collected from over 7,100 issues of eighty-one 18th-century Virginia newspapers."--Introduction.

This compilation of apprentices contains biographical records of nearly 8,000 artisans who worked in Virginia before 1801. It was created as part of a study of the role of artisans in colonial Virginia. Each record includes, when provided, the name, age, sex, and race of the indentured individual, the father's name, the name of the person they are indentured to.

The middle chapters of this book are given over to Wilkes County genealogy and biography, with chapters on the buyers and sellers of lots and the early settlers of the county. The work as a whole is crowded with references to ministers, officials, teachers, and soldiers, so much so that an index of more than 2,000 entries was created by Mrs. Hays to encompass them.

This work is a faithful transcription of the oldest surviving court records for Lower Norfolk County. Virtually all of the entries have the virtue of placing one or more settlers in Lower Norfolk County early in the 17th century.