Will Smith Book:

Editorial Review:
This book contains a digest of all but a few of the wills of Guilford County, North Carolina, from its inception in 1771 to May Term of Court in 1816. Some wills were either too interesting to digest, or, in some cases, the original writing was too difficult to decipher; however, the author has provided as much detail as possible in these instances. Guilford County was created in 1771 from the parent counties of old Rowan and old Orange. At that time it contained the present counties of Randolph and Rockingham. Randolph was taken off the southern part of Guilford in 1779, but Rockingham was not taken off the northern part of Guilford until 1785. This indicates that some of the wills in this book were those of the inhabitants of present Rockingham County. The Great Wagon Road that runs through Guilford County was used by the early inhabitants: a mixture of English (Baptists, Anglican, and Quakers), Scots-Irish from Northern Ireland, some French, a few Portuguese, and a large group of eighteenth century Germans from Germany by way of Philadelphia, Virginia and North Carolina. There were also settlers from the New England colonies. An alphabetical list of slaves named in the wills, a full name index, and a list of locations from the wills add to the value of this work. Jane Smith Hill, a native of Guilford County and noted genealogist, has written and/or abstracted several other books of Guilford County records.