Migration into Louisa County

A question came across the Louisa County mail list this morning about migration into Louisa County from Prince George County.  I wanted to respond to this question because I also have an interest in just exactly where my ancestors were living before they moved to Louisa County.  However, I haven't looked at the counties enough yet to know if they actually moved or if there were just boundary changes.  Here is the question.

I found a possible ancestor, John Joyce, recorded in Louisa County in 1743,
but he disappears from the record afterward. Recently, I found a John Joyce
recorded in 1683 in a Prince George County Deed book. Have any of you
noticed a migration from Prince George to Louisa County, Virginia in your
research before?

OK....after doing the exercise below, I find that I have almost nothing of help to the man who asked the above question.  Prince George County is way east of my families lands.....near Williamsburg.  But the time spent below was helpful.  I am inching my way towards knowing these early Louisa County ancestors.

In 1669 no one would have been living as far west as what is now Louisa.  I find my Hawkins ancestors moving west from the Northern Neck into Orange and Culpeper around 1734.  They moved up the Rappahannock River from Richmond County.  And Germanna was settled in 1714 and 1717 on the Rappahannock River in what is now Culpeper County partly as a buffer between eastern settlements and the French and the Indians on the Frontier.  But the counties that would have claimed this "frontier" land in 1669 would have been New Kent, Henrico, and Charles City as seen on the map below.



In 1691, King and Queen took a part of New Kent's territory:



In 1701 King William was formed from King and Queen:



And in 1702 Prince George from Charles City:



By 1720 families are beginning to settle farther west and Hanover and King George and Spotsylvania are formed in these western lands.  Probably our ancestors who end up in Louisa are NOT in Brunswick.


And then in 1728, an important one for me ....Goochland is formed from the western part of Henrico.
I find that many of the early families that I look at have their beginnings (well....earliest I find them) in Goochland County.



Then the important date of 1742 when Louisa County is formed from the western part of Hanover County:



And another important for me event:  Cumberland is formed from Goochland in 1749.  Another of the counties that I look at a lot for my early ancestors.



My own Ancestors in Louisa:Her information

My Andersons and Carters found in Louisa County are said to have come from neighboring farms in Goochland County.  My information comes from Pattie Cooke's book: Wartime Letters of Louisa County, Virginia: the Cooke Family Papers 1859-1866. : " “Jesse and Mary lived at one time in Caroline County, Va., but in 1843 they moved to Louisa County.  They bought 385 acres from Elish Melton in the Northwest secion of Louisa.

Her information comes from a deed in a Goochland in 1843 in which Jesse Anderson and Mary his wife are said to have been "of Caroline County".

Oh, phooey....I wasn't expecting that....back to the maps.  I was expecting Jesse and Mary to live in the same area as they had grown up before their move to Louisa.  Here is Caroline County





Mary's mother and father (surnames Scott and Carter) were married in Goochland County in  1802.   But Mary's mother (Nancy Scott Carter) died in Cumberland County 1830.....whoops....whereever I received that information from is NOT right....Cumberland has not been created yet in 1830.