I found this and believe that it contains the information that you were looking for. The information regarding Headrights is near the bottom of the page.
Debbie Davison



SOUTHERN COLONIAL LAND GRANTS




VIRGINIA COLONIAL GRANTS




CROWN GRANT CHRONOLOGY:



1606 – 1616: London Company controlled land – Individual grants were promised but not actually made.



1616: London Company paid dividends of land at 50 acres/share. “Ancient planters” who arrived before 1616 received one share for their “personal adventure”. A few individuals also received land as compensation for services to the Company.



1617: Joint-stock grants authorized to private associations at 100a per share (many of these associations were called “Hundreds”) – 44 of these grants were made through 1625 to associations or individuals, perhaps half actually settled. The associations had authority to make their own internal grants.



1618: “The Greate Charter” proposed and adopted in 1618.[1] Several types of grants authorized, though only 184 were actually issued prior to dissolution of the company:

· Shareholders: 100a/share plus a second 100a when first 100a was planted.

· 100a to “Ancient Planters” (free of quitrent if transported at their own expense) and another 100a when first was planted. Half-shares to arrivals after 1616 (if transported at own expense).

· Arrivals after 1618 promised 50a if transported at their own expense.



1624: London Company dissolved. Royal Governors were instructed to follow the rules of the “late company”. Former stockholders could still claim 100a per share. Some grants were made rewarding service to the company, and later the colony. 50 acres was still awarded for “every person transported thither”.



1625-1699: Essentially all Crown grants were headright patents (except for proprietary grants.)



1699-1776: Fee-simple (“treasury right”) grants allowed as of June 21, 1699 at five shillings per 50 acres, and quickly became the dominant form. Headright grants continued, but headrights were now limited to “His Majesty’s Christian subjects comeing to reside here”, and their volume declined dramatically after about 1715.





NORTHERN NECK (between the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers) was a special case.



1649 King Charles II gave the unclaimed lands in the Northern Neck to seven Proprietors. No grants were made by the Proprietors, but some grants continued to be made by the Crown.



1688 Culpeper, who had bought the rights to the Northern Neck charter, was granted an exclusive proprietorship by James II. He promptly died and Lord Fairfax inherited. Very few grants made until 1690.



1690 Fairfax began making grants under conditions similar to the Crown grants. The only differences were the absence of headrights and the “seating and planting” requirement.



Minor Numbers of Patents:

· Some Indian land was leased to white settlers, most later confirmed by patent.

· Minor numbers of patents were allowed for certain frontier defenders.

· French & Indian war veterans were given bounties, but not implemented until 1779.



LAND GRANT PROCESS


“Patent” and “Grant” are used interchangeably. Some people like to refer to “patents” as colonial grants and to “grants” as state grants.





TWO SOURCES OF COLONIAL GRANTS:



· Proprietary Grants: Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, North & South Carolina, Maine, New Hampshire, Virginia’s Northern Neck.



· Crown Grants: Virginia, Massachusetts, North Carolina after 1729, South Carolina after 1719.



· Some other sources of land – e.g., leases from Indians – usually later formalized as patents.





GENERAL PROCESS:



Not all colonies followed precisely the same process, but patents generally involved several steps. These steps took time and money:



· Entry − also called a claim, application, or petition. This involved marking the proposed boundaries and notifying the granting authority of the desire to claim the land. Generally a fee was required.



· Waiting period – At some stage of the process, other claimants or neighbors could identify disputes (caveats). Some waiting periods were built-in, patents being processed in periodic batches rather than immediately after submission.


· Warrant - An order by the granting authority entitling the land to be surveyed. Sometimes an order directly to the surveyor.



· Survey – later called a plat. A fee was required to the surveyor. The survey was either copied into or attached to the final grant documents.



· Patent - the formal issuance & recording of the title. Always recorded in a central location and often also at the county level. Generally several fees were required.





As with nearly all old records, what exists today is a transcription of the patents rather than the original. Be alert for clerical errors.

SOURCES FOR VIRGINIA PATENTS






· Virginia colonial grants (both Crown and Northern Neck) are available online at http://www.lva.lib.va.us/dlp/land/



· Crown grants are available in abstracted form in Cavaliers and Pioneers.



o 1623 to 1666 (Volume 1) First three volumes by Nell Marion Nugent

o 1666 to 1695 (Volume 2

o 1695 to 1732 (Volume 3)

o 1733 to 1774 (Volumes 4-7) by Dennis Ray Hudgins and The Virginia Genealogical Society.



· Northern Neck Grants (between Potomac and Rappahannock) abstracted in Northern Neck, Virginia, Land Grants, by Gertrude E. Gray



o 1694 to 1742 (Volume 1)

o 1742 to 1775 (Volume 2) - Volumes 3 and 4 are state grants in the same geography

o Earlier grants in Northern Neck Grants No. 1, 1690-1692



(Note that not all these grants were preserved. There are patents recorded in county books that do not exist in the colonial books. How many are missing is unknown.)





· Several abstract books are organized by county – e.g. Early Virginia Families Along the James covers Henrico and Goochland counties.



· Some online transcripts available at: http://www.ultranet.com/~deeds/pool.htm




Two excellent books that can add historical and social context:



Albion’s Seed, David Hackett Fischer (Oxford University Press, 1989)



Tobacco and Slaves: The Development of Southern Cultures in the Chesapeake 1680-1800, Allan Kulikoff (UNC Press, 1986)

HEADRIGHTS



Dominant form of Virginia grants until 1699. Origin was in The Greate Charter of 1618:



“That for all persons…which…shall go into Virginia with the intent there to inhabite. If they continue there three years or dye after they are shipped there shall be a grant made of fifty acres for every person … which grants shall be made respectively to such persons…at whose charges the said persons going to inhabite in Virginia shall be transported…”



Subsequent commissions to Royal Governors instructed them to follow the rules of the former company. These instructions were quite vague. For example, the earliest reads:



“…50 acres of land for every person transported thither…until otherwise determined by His Majesty.”





No restrictions on point of origin



Immigrants merely had to enter Virginia. Persons claimed as headrights could have come from another colony as well as Europe or Africa. The first restriction on point of origin was a 1699 instruction to disallow negroes, and later a restriction to English citizens.





No restrictions on age, gender, or race.





Imported person had to survive 3 years (or die) before the headright became usable.





Process for claiming headrights:

· Claim importation at county court or Council & obtain a “certificate of entitlement”

· Some of these are preserved in county court records

· The certificate was used to obtain the warrant, thus predated the patent itself

· No time limit imposed on use – a few were used 15-20 years after the fact





Headright certificates were property and could be bought or sold

· Certificates were commonly sold or traded

· The person filing the patent may not have been the importer

· Immigrants sometimes sold their own headright certificates

· Value of 50 acres was generally less than cost of importation





Misuse & corruption of the system increased over time, especially after about 1680:

· Duplicate claims - clerks seldom checked for duplicates

· Importation of the same person more than once

· Temporary importations - ship’s captains often claimed the crew

· Fictitious names & reuse of names sold by clerks – common practice by 1690s

· Acquisition of large plots by speculators





[The headright system was also used in Maryland, North Carolina, and South Carolina, though relatively few persons were claimed in the Carolinas.]

TERMINOLOGY & OTHER GENEALOGICAL CLUES






Residency Patents sometimes tell us where the patentee was living at the time. If not, we’d assume the patentee had been living on the land for a few years prior to the patent date – unless they were speculators.



Citizenship Only an English citizen could own land, whether acquired by patent or purchase. Foreign- born residents became citizens by taking a loyalty oath. Before 1680, in Virginia, this required an act of the Council, which are preserved in Hening’s Statutes at Large. After 1680, the Governor could bestow citizenship, and those records are mostly missing.



Age Patentees had to be 21. Males had to be 21 to sell land, make a will, sue or be sued, make a bond, or marry. Males aged 14 or more could own land, serve on juries (if a freeholder), choose a guardian, or witness documents.



Seating & Planting Virginia patents required “seating and planting” within three years to perfect the title. This wasn’t defined until 1666, when the Assembly decided that “building a house and keeping a stock one whole yeare upon the land shall be accounted seating, and that clearing, tending and planting an acre of ground shall be accounted planting.” In theory, failure to seat or plant made the patent fair game for a subsequent patentee. In practice, the provision was often overlooked.



Escheats When patentees died without heirs (or were convicted of a crime), the land was said to “escheat” and could be repatented by another person.



Renewals Patents which lapsed by abandonment, failure to seat, or failure to pay quit rents could be patented, in whole or in part, by another person. Sometimes, however, land was repatented as a result of a sale of the land.



Processioning Surveyors were appointed and not always competent. Inaccurate surveys caused many boundary disputes and lawsuits. In 1661 the Virginia Assembly required landowners to “goe in procession” once every four years to examine and agree upon the boundary lines of each tract. Responsibility was given to the parish vestries, which established precincts for the purpose. Selected landowners within each precinct plus two surveyors performed the task. Processioning occurred in the 50-day period after Easter from 1662-1691, thereafter in September-March. Processioning records, where they exist, verify ownership and neighbors.



Acreage The acreage can be a rough clue to family size. One person could cultivate only about 50 acres, so grants larger than 100 acres usually meant male children or ownership of slaves or servants.



Freeholders Only freeholders (normally a 50a minimum, but varied by county) were eligible to serve on juries, hold public office, or vote for Burgesses.



Quit Rents Patents were technically long-term leases. A small annual rent was due to the Crown or Proprietor. If the land was sold, the new owner assumed the responsibility. In Virginia, only the 1704 lists of rent payers is preserved, but rent rolls also exist for other colonies. Some merchant accounts include references to rent payments. [No taxes were assessed on land.]



Calendar Don’t forget to adjust for Julian dates. (Jan 1 – Mar 25 were actually in the prior year until 1752.)

PLOTTING GRANTS




This can be very handy for identifying the precise location of land. It’s helpful in identifying the county the land was in, which likely changed over time. Plus, you can often pinpoint occupation of the land by looking at the surrounding patents and their surveys for description of the boundaries. Plotting the immediate neighbors is also very helpful. The neighbors are important because they are clues to spouses and to extended families. They also help identify taxing districts.



Even if you’re working with a deed or lease, the land was originally acquired by patent, and backing up to that patent is usually helpful.





Understanding Metes And Bounds



This system was used in all the original colonies, plus Tennessee, Kentucky, and Texas. “Metes” (measurements) and “Bounds” (boundaries) describe a tract in terms of neighbor’s boundaries, natural features, compass directions, and distances. Each boundary is defined as a distance and compass direction, resulting in a multi-sided figure. Compass directions have to be adjusted for the difference between true north and magnetic north - not all surveyors made the adjustment, which can result adjoining tracts not quite meeting. Magnetic north also moves over time, so you have to adjust for where it was at the time of the survey.



Distances were measured using a chain of 100 links. Each link was 2/3 foot, so the length of a chain was 66 feet. 10 square chains was one acre. Commonly, increments of 1/4 chain – interchangeably called a pole, rod, or perch – were used for distances.





Using Maps



Old maps are not very useful for plotting because they lack detail, except for local maps used by surveyors and entry takers. Modern topographical maps are much more useful – though names of watercourses may have changed. USGS maps are available free on the internet – try www.topozone.com. DeLorme has a series of state topographical atlases which are very useful - $16.95 in any bookstore. Gazetteers are helpful for identifying old landmarks, and some knowledge of county formations is needed to identify precise locations.





Spending Some Money



If you are really detail-oriented, DeedMapper is a software program for drawing old patents and deeds and placing them onto topographical maps. $99 from Direct Line Software – order from http://www.ultranet.com/~deeds/order.htm







GRANTS IN OTHER SOUTHERN COLONIES
NORTH CAROLINA
(settled 1653)

Some early grants recorded in Virginia, particularly near the border, which was not clearly established until 1732. In 1663 the general area that became North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia was split among eight Proprietors, each of whom had the right to grant land. North Carolina became a colony in 1729 after King George bought seven of the eight shares, with Granville (Lord Carteret) the only remaining Proprietor. Granville received a special grant in 1744 and sold his own patents. [Granville owned the land from the Virginia border to roughly the path of US 64.] Georgia and South Carolina were split off later. All grants are well preserved at the NC Archives.

1669-1729 Eight Proprietors granted land. Dispensed as both headright and fee simple grants, generally similar to the Virginia system. The land office was centralized, and those grants are well preserved. Grants in process continued to completion, so many are actually dated after 1729.

· Province of North Carolina 1663-1729 Abstracts of Land Patents, Margaret M. Hofman, 1979

1729-1776 Grants from the Crown and from Granville recorded with the colony or with Granville’s agents. Very few headright patents.

· Two volumes of Crown Grants by Margaret M. Hofman:

o Colony of NC 1735-1764 Abstract of Land Patents (Vol. I)

o Colony of NC 1765-1775 Abstract of Land Patents (Vol. II)

· Five volumes of Granville grants by Margaret M. Hofman:

o The Granville District of North Carolina 1748-1763 Abstracts of Land Grants

o The Granville District of North Carolina 1748-1763 Abstracts of Land Grants

o The Granville District of North Carolina 1748-1763 Abstracts of Land Grants

o The Granville District of North Carolina 1748-1763 Abstracts of Miscellaneous Land Office Records

o The Granville District of North Carolina 1748-1763 Abstracts of Miscellaneous Land Office Records

o Granville territory encompassed: Anson, Bladen, Bertie, Beaufort, Currituck, Chowan, Cumberland, Dobbs, Edgecombe, Granville, Halifax, Hyde, Johnson, Northampton, Orange, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Pitt, Rowan, and Tyrrell counties.



Also see: Colonial Petitions for Land Resurveys and Caveats of Land Warrants, A. B. Pruitt (1993)







GEORGIA
(settled c1733)



Georgia’s colonial records are sparse – all court and tax records are lost, as are many other records – and its population was quite small in colonial times. There were relatively few colonial grants. Many early patents no longer exist, but some patents and surveys are in loose papers at the Georgia Archives.



Sources:



· Best source is The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia, 39 vols., Allen D. Candler (Atlanta, Ga.: various printers, 1906–40)



· 1733-1755: Entry of Claims for Georgia Landholders, 1733–1755, Pat Bryant (Georgia State Printing Office, 1975)



· 1758-1776: Georgia Land Owners' Memorials, 1758–1776, Mary B. Warren (Danielsville, Ga.: Heritage Papers, 1988)





SOUTH CAROLINA
(settled 1671)



South Carolina was a sparsely settled part of North Carolina until 1713, though it was not recognized as a royal colony until 1719 and was not separately administered until 1723. The NC Proprietors made grants from 1670 through 1719. After 1719, some land remained in the hands of Proprietors, but most was granted by the royal colony. Many of these early land records are lost, but the South Carolina Archives has a single compilation of extant grant abstracts on microfilm: “Abstracts of South Carolina Land Grants 1664-1775”. Surveys and warrants are also in the Archives. SC made some headright grants, listed in the South Carolina Council Journals (1749-1773).



Other Sources:



· Lists of Proprietary grants (generally without details) are found in

o Records of the Secretary of the Province and the Register of the Province of South Carolina, 1671-1675, A.S. Salley (Columbia, S.C.: Historical Commission of South Carolina, 1944).

o Warrants for Lands in South Carolina 1672-1711, A.S. Salley, (Columbia, S.C.: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Reprinted 1973)



· Grants made by North Carolina are in North Carolina Grants in South Carolina, 2 vols., Brent H. Holcomb (Clinton, S.C.: B. Holcomb, 1975, 1976)



· Royal grants 1719-1775 exist in the SC Archives and are listed without details in:

o South Carolina Deed Abstracts, 1719-1772, 4 vols., Clara A. Langley (Easley, S.C.: Southern Historical Press, 1983-84)

o An Index to Deeds of the Province and State of South Carolina, 1719-1785, and Charlestown District, 1785-1800, Rev. Silas Emmett Lucas Jr., (Easley, S.C.: Southern Historical Press, 1977)

o Petitions For Land From The South Carolina Council Journals, (5 vols. 1734-1765), Brent H. Holcomb.



Beginning in 1741, all persons who received land after 1719 were required to deliver “memorials” to the colony, describing their land and how it was acquired. Originals of these records are in the SC Archives. A few of these records are published in South Carolina Memorials, 1731-1776: Abstracts of Selected Land Records from a Collection in the Department of Archives and History..., 2 vols., Katie-Prince Ward Esker (Polyanthos Press, 1973-1977)





MARYLAND
(settled 1634)



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”.

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:

o Settlers of Maryland 1679-1700

o Settlers Of Maryland 1701-1730

o Settlers of Maryland 1731-1750

o Settlers of Maryland; 1751-1765








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[1] A good source for text of a variety of colonial charters is: www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/states/statech.htm