Officers of the Georgia branch of the Huguenot Society of the Founders of Manakin in the Colony of Virginia at its July 6 meeting presented a book to the Georgia Room of the Charles D. Switzer Public Library in Marietta in honor of outgoing President Susan Shaylor, of Marietta. Many of the society’s members live in Brookhaven, Buckhead, Sandy Springs and Vinings.
“Turff and Twigg, Volume One, The French Lands” by Priscilla H. Cabell records the French refugees who settled in the burned-out Manahoac Indian village in the early 1700s. London was overflowing with French Protestants fleeing from France because they were being murdered by the Catholic French monarchy, so the King of England gave 10,000 acres of land to the Huguenots that were willing to go to the New World.
Their settlement came to be known as Manakin Town, and is located on the James River in present-day Richmond, Virginia. Each Huguenot family was given 133 acres. This book documents all of the original settlers and their land patents. In addition to the patentees, it includes their wills, names of their spouses, parents, children, grandchildren, where they came from in France, etc. This very difficult-to-find book is a must-read for anyone researching their Manakin heritage.
To become a member of the society, one must document an unbroken line of descent from one of the founders of the Manakin Colony or from a Huguenot who lived in Virginia prior to 1786.
If you think you are of Huguenot descent, visit huguenot-manakin.org/manakin/lineages.php. For more information, email Lena Wiley at lenawiley7@yahoo.com.
(from The Northside Neighbor at http://www.mdjonline.com/neighbor_newspapers/northside_sandy_springs/)