Purpose of the 1700 Club Project
To help all Ferguson family researchers connect to their 18th Century Virginia roots
FERGUSON RESEARCHERS: As you may know, Virginia was the most populous colony/state during the 18th Century and many, if not most of our Ferguson ancestors lived, at least for a while, in Virginia sometime in the 1700s. Also, because of the limited records available, many Ferguson families researching their genealogy run into a wall, even if they are fortunate enough to trace their roots to the 1700s. Right now, it is possible to find bits and pieces of information on Fergusons scattered all over the internet and many of us have tried the hit and miss method of searching Ancestry.com or posting questions on various forums to gain new insights. Members of the 1700 Club Project think what will work better is the creation of a repository of any information on any Ferguson who ever lived in Virginia prior to 1800, organized by County. We believe that construction of such a data bank will be a tremendous help for sorting out most of the Ferguson lines that originate or pass through 18th Century Virginia.
Members of the 1700 Club project are in the initial stages of systematically gathering together all the information on 18th Century Fergusons from Virginia Wills, deeds, court orders, tax records, bible records, marriage records, censuses, county histories etc, (all fully sourced), to create what we believe will be a unique reference resource for all who are searching their Ferguson roots. Is it really feasible to pull all this information together and store it in one location on-line? We believe so -- the number of Ferguson families who lived in Virginia at any one time is not overwhelming. For example, in the 1787 Virginia census reproduced from property tax records lists about 130 Ferguson heads of households. Also, their are many publications that have abstracted information on wills, land transactions, marriage records etc -- mostly on a county-by-county basis. Moreover, Sandy Sellers has offered the use of this website to host such a repository where she has set up the equivalent of folders for each Virginia County to store the Ferguson data (click on icon to check this out. For a good example of what we are trying to compile, see "Present Day Virginia Counties/Cities", Albemarle County, Deeds).
What You Will Find On the Next Screen
-- As a reference, a listing of the dates of formation of Virginia counties prior to 1700, as well as Kentucky counties formed between 1780 and 1789.
-- "Sources of Information", a listing of the sources we currently are using to populate the Ferguson database
-- "Personalities", summary of findings on what we know or believe to be true of individual Fergusons from the historical records. We plan to associate family groups where possible to help discovery of linkages to Ferguson descendants.
-- "Present Day Virginia Counties/Cities", click on a County name and you will find the data currently posted for that County. Note that some County names are shown in Black font -- these Counties, as yet, have no data posted.
-- "Virginia Links", information on Fergusons who migrated from Virginia in the 18th Century to other States/Colonies.
What You Can Do To Help
-- First, feel free to search the records we have already posted. Don't be disappointed if you don't find the answers you are looking for right away! As of late-2007, this project is just beginning and only a very small percentage of the relevant records have been sourced, transcribed and posted in the various County folders.
-- Second, if you have copies or transcriptions of any records that mentions a Ferguson in Virginia prior to 1800, either as a participant or as a witness (for example in a land transaction), please send it to myself at jferguson3@cox.net or Sandy Sellers at sandy@thistleandbee.com, and we will see that the information is organized and posted for use by all researchers.
-- Third, if you know of sources that should be tapped, or have documented family links to 18th Century Virginia, please pass this information forward as well.
-- Fourth, if you have any suggestions for improving the Ferguson database, please send your ideas to us.
-- Lastly, if you have on-going access to Virginia public records from the 18th Century and would like to join our team, please contact Sandy or myself.
So far, Sandy Sellers, John Ferguson, Sharon Clark, Anne Miller and June have begun to do what we can to accumulate Ferguson information by visiting local genealogy libraries and extracting data on Fergusons. We think that a small team of Ferguson researchers with access to Virginia public records can divide the Virginia counties up and pull all the existing data together over time for the benefit of all. We call this project the 1700 Club. Will you join us?