The above linked page is my write up of the Carroll Cemetery which is just off Nellie Jones Road in the Bracey area. This cemetery was part of John B. Kidd’s estate. There are no tombstones there, only field stones that mark the head and feet of the burials. I believe this cemetery dates to before 1830. The land was bought then divided between John B. Kidd’s children in very different acreage amounts. John B. Kidd is listed in the deed books as purchasing land five times. He bought land in two areas. The northern land ran partly along Hall Rd, much of which Miles Hall ended up purchasing from his wife Elizabeth Kidd’s siblings. The land south of Nellie Jones road was labeled on the estate plat as “the lower tract.” I added up all 5 purchases but there are discrepancies in numbers. John B Kidd’s estate shows a total (northern and southern lands) of about 320 more acres than I can account for him purchasing. My guess is that he inherited land in both areas.
I learned several things that interested me while trying to discover who owned the land before John B. Kidd. The first was that Samuel McKinney owned property bordering the Griffith estate property that John B. Kidd purchased in 1841. Samuel married Elizabeth Newman, the older sister of Martha Newman. This Martha Newman married James B. Jones and they are the ancestors of most of the Jones in the Great Creek area. I thought Samuel and Elizabeth McKinney lived in Brunswick County, so I was surprised to find them living by Great Creek.
I also found it surprising that the chancery case (to divide Arimenta’s estate) said that this land was known as “The Arimenta Glover tract of land.” This land was inherited from her father, John B. Kidd, and Arimenta had been married to Robert Carroll for 18 years. Arimenta’s first marriage was to Granderson Glover, my great…grandfather. (I’m a descendant of his first marriage in Tennessee.) She was only married to Granderson 10 years before he died, yet this was known as the Arimenta Glover land.
I love the genealogical treasures you can find in chancery cases! In this post, I’ll try to explain what a chancery case is, and how they help me with family history; using the chancery of Jimmy Kidd’s estate as an example. Chancery records are not “beginner genealogy”, but it’s so worth it to learn more about these records because they tell us: women’s maiden names, when people died, relationships stated under oath, depositions about how people are related or how they know the plaintiff or defendant, copies of wills, copies of plats, etc. It depends on the type of complaint in the chancery case how much of that is included. In Virginia, all chancery cases before 1930 were sent to LVA (Library of Virginia), also before 1930, divorce cases (which were part of the circuit court) were sent to LVA, and are part of the chancery collection. LVA has an amazing searchable index which is available online. You can search by county for plaintiff, defendant, or just surname(which includes “other”, like a witness). I always search “surname” which includes searches for all 3 categories (see image below). When I first started researching my Virginia ancestors, I was disappointed that my family didn’t have any wills. But then I discovered that because they didn’t have wills, their estates were divided in chancery, with much more information in the chancery case than a will would have contained. Chancery records are some of the best proof I know for family links, especially if you are researching Taylors & Jones.
The LVA site says “There are over 272,000 cases indexed in the database and nearly 11 million images of chancery causes available online.” Mecklenburg and Brunswick counties have not yet been digitized, so I go to the actual LVA to see the originals. Orange county has them microfilmed, so I view those microfilms at LVA. Madison County has them digitized. You can scan through the folder and view the whole case on the LVA website. The search results will tell you about the case, the surnames in the case, and the format so you will know how you can view it.
There are several parts to a chancery case. The genealogical information is usually in the bill of complaint and answer. There’s also the judge’s answer (decision). If the complaint is that a will is not being fulfilled, the will is usually included. If the complaint is that a person died without a will and has land to be divided between heirs, a plat may be ordered and land divided. If someone promised to free their slaves at death and the slaves aren’t freed, there may be written proof and probably depositions of people saying they were told by their friend (or brother etc) that the slaves were to be freed. Other reasons for cases I have seen include: debts or bonds signed, secured with land, but the debt has not been paid by the promised date. The judge would then order the land to be sold to pay the debt. I also have seen debts involving slaves, owners loaning their slaves to build houses, harvest crops etc and charging fees with interest, that the other person could not pay by the due date. Large chancery cases are often full of receipts of people paying debts in payments or receiving payments. After the civil war, many people went to chancery court, because they had no money to pay their debts, or executors could not fulfill the will anymore. This is a link to an LVA document which explains chancery cases in detail. Page 3 gives more detail about the parts of a case.
There are over 272,000 cases indexed in the database and nearly 11 million images of chancery causes available online.
Library of Virginia
The legal language of chancery cases can get confusing. I bought a Barron’s dictionary of legal terms (written for non-lawyers) to help me better understand what some of the more complex cases I copied mean. One thing that confused me when I first started, was why a sibling was suing all his other siblings, yet asking for equal inheritance for himself and all his siblings?! He wasn’t actually suing as we might think of today, but rather this was the legal language used to get the case into court so they could equally receive their inheritance.
What is the difference between a chancery court and other courts? One big difference is that in chancery, a judge decides the result, not a jury. One observation I have is that cases usually involve money, property or land. LVA has a great write up about that as well, here is their explanation:
I did not know this land was in chancery until a friend found this newspaper article for me. This includes 2 pieces of land owned by Jimmy Kidd and his wife Nannie Gray. I knew that one of these farms was John Gray’s old farm. The other was the farm where Nannie & Jimmy lived. I did not see this chancery case in the LVA chancery index. I took this newspaper article to the LVA archivists and they told me they did not have this case. This is right about the time courthouses were sending older cases to LVA but keeping current cases. I went to the Mecklenburg County Courthouse and they did have it! And it was all typed!
This was a rather large case which included lots of documenting receipts. I copied the complaint, answer and depositions, which are in this file that you can download here. Everything in the chancery was typed, but there was one handwritten page by Ewing Kidd (TE Kidd, Thomas Ewing Kidd), so I copied that as well. The case was still folded & held together in legal folders with clips, so they aren’t all copied straight and even. Here are the pages I copied, if you’d like to view the case:
(PDF)Scanned copy of Jimmy’s will at the courthouse
This chancery case gives a typed copy of Jimmy Kidd’s will, which says he leaves everything to his wife Nannie, then after she dies, the estate is to be equally divided between his children. This chancery case was filed because the heirs didn’t feel the two properties could be divided equally between 8 children. Depositions were taken of neighbors, asking if they felt the land could be divided equally, or if the land should be sold and the money divided equally between the 8 heirs. One important note is that Benjamin Bart Kidd died in 1925, before this case began. So his share was to be divided between his 3 children. Bart’s widow had remarried and she now went by the name of Bettie Johnson. This map shows the two pieces of land in the chancery case, letter A & letter B. The men who gave depositions are also noted with their names on their property locations. Note: Edwin Lambert would have lived above his store at old Bracey, just a little to the west of where this map cuts off.
The judge decided to sell the 2 parcels and divide the receipts of the sale between the heirs. Edwin Lambert bought parcel A, the farm his wife grew up on. Adolphus Kidd bought parcel B, which used to be the Gray farm.
map to go with depositions
Here are some highlights from the 1930 depositions, about land and relationships.
signatures of Bart Kidd & Alma’s children1935 signature of Bettie, the widow of Benjamin Bart KiddEwing Kidd’s handwriting
Many people today, assume that a cemetery in rural Virginia without tombstones must be a slave cemetery. But this is a misunderstanding. Most people could barely afford to feed their families and pay their mortgages. The cost of a tombstone could not even be a priority. It was not considered a practical use of money, which was scarce. At first glance, it might seem impossible to learn anything about field stones. I have learned much more about the people and the land with newer tools such as mapping on satellite images and adding GPS coordinates of cemeteries to that map. The majority of my ancestors in Mecklenburg County, Virginia did not have tombstones. Burials at churches (or with tombstones) did not happen for most of the people I know about there, before World War I. Tombstones were not very common in this areae until after World War II when the economy started improving. Tombstones were also often put up much later by descendants, Sons of Confederate Veterans, and Daughters of the Revolution. I talked to Stephen Lambert Jr & Sr in August 2004 about the cemetery with Nellie Brooks and Frederick Jones. Lambert descendants knew which burial plot was Nellie’s and which was Frederick’s because of a drawing of the cemetery that used to be kept in the Family Bible. The tombstones were placed there about the early 1960’s, approximately 145 years after Frederick died.
Tombstone of Frederick Jones
When I first began visiting Mecklenburg, in January 2003, I printed every tombstone picture I took and put it in a photo album. Of course I was teased about that. But I wanted the few stones I found to be in a book, so that each time I visited, I could show my book to people and ask questions about the person with that tombstone. I wanted to know where they lived, who were they related to etc. Some relatives didn’t know a headstone had existed until they saw my book. When they last saw the cemetery as a young child, it was just field stones. Each visit to Mecklenburg, I asked everyone if they knew about family cemeteries. I also visited whatever cemeteries I could find marked on 1960’s USGS topographical maps. I have discovered many long forgotten cemeteries with a lot of help from people who live there.
The maroon colored upside down letter “T” is the symbol I use on my map for cemeteries. I thought the symbol looked closest to a tombstone. The churches are a marked by a cross, the same color if there’s a cemetery at the church. Most of the cemeteries I’ve visited are not visible from the road. Many cemeteries are in areas that haven’t been farmed for at least 20 years, so there are often many briars, small trees and brush to get through. I visit Mecklenburg more frequently in the winter to look for cemeteries.
This summer (2019), I went to a cemetery relatively close to old Robert Joyce, Kidd and Cannon lands. I took a picture with GPS coordinates (an app on my phone), typed those coordinates into the map, and saw that this cemetery is on land which used to belong to Samuel McKinney and Elizabeth Newman. I have no idea who is actually buried here, and I don’t know anyone who can tell me any old family stories about this land. But I can theorize, that it is highly likely the people who owned the land were buried on heir land at this time. There were fence posts and a fence still visible in some places.
Cemetery on old property (1860s) of Robert Massenburg Thomas & wife Julia Kidd
These are 2 GPS pictures I took of this cemetery with what we estimate to be about 45 graves. Some places we could see head and foot markers for 6 burials in a row. I only found this cemetery because someone knew about it, knew I was asking about cemeteries and took me to see it. There were rocks (field stones) marking head and foot areas. Some land depressions. No names or carved information anywhere.
What can a cemetery without tombstones tell us? If there was a family of 12 children, but only 3 burials, I know I haven’t found the whole family yet. If for example, John B. Kidd had 7 parcels on his plat south of Nellie Jones Rd which he gave to his children, but I have only found cemeteries on 3 parcels then I expect to find cemeteries on the 4 other parcels. If I get a GPS coordinate and don’t know who used to live there pre-1900, then I start looking through deeds. If I hear about a cemetery of field stones, I want to see if any descendants possibly added tombstones. I have found mentions of cemeteries, in both deeds and chancery cases. Twice I’ve seen someone buried in the cemetery mentioned by name in the land record. One cemetery I’m currently searching for is mentioned in a deed, with an acre lot. That cemetery is larger than any of the family cemeteries I’ve visited before. I have only heard reference to one slave cemetery, because the man’s mother showed him where it was, to protect it. That’s another cemetery I hope to visit soon. If you know of any cemeteries, whether marked or unmarked, please let me know.
Two field stones
If you are looking for cemeteries in Brunswick County Virginia, check out this site
