Jones In Virginia 1623 - 1666

My own JONES surname family tree climbing starts in Virginia...at least on this side of the great pond.  Over the years [now 53 of them] genealogy has involved a study of land grants and patents.  For me, this has involved a great deal of research into these subjects from the earliest settlement of Virginia.  My research is contained in a series of notebooks that cover many topics and areas of interest. [ See my blog entitled:  The Jones Genealogist Research Notebooks.]  Notebook #205 contains my work on a coding system of those who's JONES surname appears in the abstracts of Virginia land patents and grants 1623 - 1666. [ Cavaliers and Pioneers by Nugent.]  The table below is a copy of a page from this collection.

It is basically a chronology of the JONES surname as it appears with Elizabeth (JO-1) and runs to Evan (JO-651).  It was my attempt to help separate (by coding) the many, many, and many JONES who shared the same first name.   These folks were then arranged alphabetically [in this notebook] so that one could "look-up" a first name, and then research how this group, sharing this first name, could be organized and studied.  For me, this was necessary since my JONES family tree had so many branches which crossed one another.   Wow...who would have thought that this method helped open several important doors to the past, and helped cross the great pond to the other side.