Abstracting: One of the authors of this website, Keith McDowell, has abstracted records when there is no need to transcribe the full record. Such abstracts are denoted by "KM Abstract". Deeds in particular have a lot of boilerplate language that contributes nothing to the storyline. Lists of names in road records or estate purchases or articles in inventories suffer the same fate. They are routinely abstracted at this website.

Bibliographic References: When a published work is routinely cited, we place it in a Bibliography and report the reference using typically the author's last name as a link to the source along with the page number within that source.

Capitalization: For whatever reason, the first letter in random words in sentences are often capitalized in original documents. Sometimes, words that should be capitalized are not. For the most part, we have cleaned up such capitalization errors to make reading transcribed material easier when meaning does not appear to be affected.

Endnotes: Footnotes do not work in a digital format where pages don't exist. We use endnotes instead. They can be accessed by clicking on the hyperlinked number. The back arrow on browsers returns the reader to the original location.

Errors: Original material often contains an error. To the extent possible, we avoid overloading transcriptions with a "Sic".

Punctuation: Original court records, deeds, documents, and wills are notorious for lack of punctuation with sentences or lists (especially names) concatenated into a string of words. Sometimes, mysterious dashes and colons appear to separate material. Where it makes sense, we have added proper punctuation to our transcriptions to make them more readable.

Spelling: Unless it contributes to the historical "feel" and readability of transcribed material, we generally correct spelling errors.

Transcribed Records: Such records are routinely italicized and placed in an indented block format. The source for the record typically appears as the final line of the block.

Unreadable text: Due to poor handwriting, smeared ink, deteriorated and blackened pages, disappearing ink, faint print, torn pages, and even poor quality microfilming, it is sometimes difficult or essentially impossible to transcribe words and phrases. When that situation occurs, we generally insert an underline (__) between words to show that something is missing and could not be read.

Bibliographic Reference: We use the format [hyperlink to reference publication, page number within the reference].

Birth, Death, and Cemetery Data: We use the following format: Person's Name [Birth Date - Death Date Hyperlink to Cemetery Data/FG] with FG indicating that the data comes from Find-a-Grave.

Cemetery Data: Rather than constantly repeating the name and location of a cemetery, we collect such information at the end of file and access it via a specific hyperlinked abbreviation from within the file.

Children: Whenever possible, we provide the hyperlinked list of children near the beginning of their parent's section in order to make navigation within the files easier to do, especially given that a married couple's section can be very long.

Endnote: We use the format [hyperlinked endnote number].

Lists: Original documents often contain either account lists or item lists with a specific label and a price or value attached. We typically invert the order so that the price or value comes first followed by the label. This permits the viewer to visually see the flow of the calculation and to understand how summative results are obtained. Such reformatting doesn't change anything about the data.

Page Number: Page numbers within a specific source follow after a colon. For example, a court minute (CM) from Richmond County NC on page 15 of book F would appear as "RichmondCMF:15" whereas a deed book (DB) record might be "RichmondDB5:294".

Parents: We provide a hyperlink to the parents of a specific individual at the start of their section in order to make navigation up and down a family tree straightforward.

Bible Records: Such records are rarely used at this website since they are not generally available.

Birth/Death Dates: These are taken from FG, death records such as death certificates, probate dates for a Will, court records announcing an administrator, Bible records, and other such sources. When required, PMT dates are used, but these records are sometimes incorrect. One should also be aware that the information on death certificates, other than the death date, is provided by an informant and is sometimes wrong.

Census Records: These records are transcribed from Ancestry.com with an occasional change in the names from those filed at Ancestry due to a closer read of the original file or other knowledge of what the name is supposed to be given that the handwriting is often hard to read.

Court Records: It is often difficult to determine the precise name of the court book in which a record appears, or to find the precise day and date of the record, or to determine the page number within the book (pages are often not numbered). The records at this website have been accessed at Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org (FSO), and direct access to record books at the the North Carolina State Archives (NCSA), the Virginia archives in Richmond VA, the Georgia archives near Atlanta, and various county courthouses and repositories.

Deed Records: Same as Court Records, but also online databases at county Register of Deeds websites.

Find-a-Grave (FG): While the birth, death, and cemetery information is normally correct, the attached biographical information as supplied by external users can be wrong and should be checked.

Military Records: These records come principally from the website Fold3.com with occasional use of Ancestry.com.

Oral History: We sometimes present oral history along with the source. Such information is useful but sometimes not correct or impossible to verify.

Public Member Trees (PMT): While an extremely useful source at Ancestry.com, the family trees are sometimes wrong as well as having the data incorrectly assigned and often not sourced with respect to dates or marriages.

Published Works: These sources are listed in a Bibliography at the end of each file. While typically an excellent source of data, they are sometimes provably wrong — likely due to having been compiled in the predigital age — and should not be accepted as the final word in the absence of proof of any claim.

Will and Estate Records: Same as Court Records.