8 Jones, The Present State of Virginia, 97; for the custom in England see records of a court case (ca. 1706) in Warwickshire, where a family refused to part with a manor “because it is so ancient an estate and has been the burying-place of the Family for above 400 years.” Ms. B1309G, WARO.

9 Bruce, John Randolph, I, 12.

10 Fithian, Journal and Letters, 100.

11 Morton, Robert Carter of Nomini Hall, 210.

12 Family size (mean numbers of children) in the Chesapeake colonies was as follows for all families, and for completed families (which remained intact through the wife’s child-bearing years):

Place

Population

Cohort

All Fams.

Compl. Fams.

Somerset Co. (Md.)

immigrant whites

1665-95m

3.9

6.1

 

native whites

1665-95m

6.1

9.4

Prince George’s Co. (Md.)

all whites

1700-24m

n.a.

7.5

 

 

1725-49m

n.a.

7.6

Middlesex Co., Virginia

all whites

1650-54b

n.a.

7.0

 

 

1655-59b

n.a.

8.1

 

 

1660-64b

n.a.

9.6

 

 

1665-69b

n.a.

6.2

 

 

1670-74b

n.a.

6.2

 

 

1675-79b

n.a.

5.9

 

 

1680-84b

n.a.

7.3

 

 

1685-89b

n.a.

7.3

 

 

1690-94b

n.a.

7.4

 

 

1695-99b

n.a.

7.2

 

 

1700-04b

n.a.

7.3

 

 

1705-09b

n.a.

6.2

 

 

1710-14b

n.a.

4.7

Virginia

elite whites

pre-1700m

n.a.

8.5

 

 

1701-20m

n.a.

6.7

Note: Cohorts are defined by date of marriage (m), or by date of the wife’s birth (b); sources include Rutman and Rutman, A Place in Time, 73; Allan Kulikoff, “Tobacco and Slaves: Population, Economy and Society in Eighteenth-Century Prince George’s County, Maryland” (thesis, Brandeis, 1976), chap. 12; Russell R. Menard and Lorena S. Walsh, “The Demography of Somerset County, Maryland: A Progress Report,” Newberry Papers in Family and Community History 81-2 (1981), 33; Susan Simmons, unpublished research on Virginia elites.