Since its publication in 1958 this work has been regarded as an important source-book for colonial Virginia genealogy. It contains transcriptions of numerous historical documents and provides a great deal of out-of-the-way information pertaining to Virginians of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, much of it previously unknown. It is the product, in fact, of the compiler"s researches into the by-ways of the Public Record Office in London, in particular his investigations of the reports sent from Virginia to the Colonial Office--an investigation into the very marrow of Virginia history. Among the documents copied and recorded here, such as lists of colonial officials, naval and militia officers, petitions, French refugees (1700-1702) and lists of ships leaving and arriving at Virginia ports, three groups of records in particular deserve to be singled out: (1) The Present State of Virginia (with respect to individual counties), which gives county acreage, number of tithables, and names of sheriffs, burgesses, coroners, justices, clerks, surveyors, and ministers; (2) Patents for Land, 1699-1737 (with gaps), giving the name of the patentee, date of the patent, county, and acreage; and (3) The Rent Rolls of 1704, which supply the names of thousands of property holders in twenty Virginia counties!