[Manuscript Family Record of Josiah Worrell and His Descendants, Written Within a Contemporary Book, Recording Births, Including Four Slaves]

[Southampton, Va, 1835. Fair.. [8]pp. of manuscript, plus a loose sheet of manuscript measuring 12.5 x 4 inches, written within a book on family medicine. Book disbound, lacking title page and first text leaf, some gatherings and leaves loose or detached. Some age toning to manuscript leaves. A unique manuscript family genealogy for the Worrell family of Virginia as recorded by several hands in the margins and blank portions of two middle pages and on a few terminal and end leaves of a contemporary copy of a sammelband of two early American imprints -- The Family Adviser (1793) and John Wesley's Primitive Physic (1795, revised and corrected) and on a single folded sheet folded and laid into the book. The entries within the book detail the births of the children of Josiah and Alice Worrell, and sometimes their in-laws. An example of the former: "Lewis Worrell Son of Josiah Worrell & Alice his wife was born March 7 / 1774." And an example of the latter: "Polley Worrell wife of the said Lewis Worrell was born March the 9th / 1781." The entries continue much the same, with the latest-dated entry reading: "Benj. Eldridge Worrell Son of Lewis Worrell & Temperance his wife was born June 21st 1835."

Sometime, presumably in the 1790s, a member of the family also listed out a long accounting of the births of Josiah Worrell's children on a longer piece of paper folded into the present work. Titled in manuscript, "Ages of Josiah Worrell's children," this sheet again begins with Lewis Worrell and lists a total of six members of the Worrell family. Most interestingly, the bottom of this sheet also contains the births of four family slaves. This listing reads, as follows: "Negro Ages. Ben was born the 8th day of June 1783. Solomon was born Dec. 20th 1785. Simon was born Feby. the 14th 1790. Isam was born the 20th Dec. 1792." The inclusion of the birth dates of four slaves is highly unusual in a family record of this type, but remains valuable information on the lives of these four enslaved men owned by the Worrell family.