Chris's Genealogy Journey: July 6th Dinwiddie County, Virginia

This is the historic Dinwiddie Courthouse. The one I did my research in is a
new and uninteresting building.

After finishing what I wanted to do in Mecklenburg County I retraced my ancestor’s movements by going northeast to Dinwiddie County. I headed right for the courthouse where a very pleasant and helpful clerk showed me where to find the records I wanted to copy. The night before I’d checked their online databases and had made a list of 11 marriage records and 11 wills or probate documents for family members. In addition to 3 Pattillo marriage records I decided to focus on my Phillips, Moseley and Hutchison ancestors from Virginia. After finding and copying everything on my list I inquired about what other types of documents they had.

That question led me to surveyor records, order books, guardian accounts, voter registration records, and Original Land Patents and State Grants. The latter included a survey done September 22, 1773 for John Ferguson that refers to “the land previously owned by James Pitillo by patent in the year 1735 for 580 acres but by the present survey thereof is found to contain 662 acres” according to James Greenway, Surveyor of Dinwiddie. This would be my 5^th great grandfather and I believe the oldest original document I’ve ever found.

This is a portion of the deed that references James Pitillo's 662 acres of land in Dinwiddie County. I love the way the
surveyor drew the survey and then wrote the description around the drawing. To the left he drew the tavern and tree
across the road. Above he drew in the Browder's home in red.

At this point I left the nice, air-conditioned court building and went to my motorhome that had been sitting in full sun for an hour and a half. Once there I conducted a Capital Campaign meeting for CGS with my cohorts Jane Lindsey and Sandy Fryer. I felt like I was in a sauna even with all the doors wide open. I moved us through the agenda quickly and returned to the courthouse.

This is a blurry photo of George R. Pattillo I found in a
book in Dinwiddie County

Next, the clerk showed me how to look up Deeds on their computer. When I entered “Pattillo” I recognized all but one name on the list for both Grantee and Grantor, so I asked for copies of 25 deeds – skipping only the one name I did not recognize. Oops, last night while looking at the marriage records I’d gotten and saw that name – she was the wife of one of my ancestors.

While I was waiting for the clerk to make copies of the deeds, I wrangled a huge book down from the top of a bookcase. It was a Register of Deaths that started in the 1860s. The size of the book must have been 24” by 30”and about an inch thick. On the first page I saw the name Moseley, Thomas the 5 year old son of Buck and Elizabeth Moseley who died of unknown causes at the age of 5. The next entry was Merrett Moseley, age 3 and the third, Margaret was only 1 year old. All children of Buck and Elizabeth. This volume had no index and was just too sad, so I put it back on top of the bookshelf. I have two Elizabeth Moseley’s in my database but neither was of the right age to have been these three children’s mother.