# Thomas Lackey → William Littlejohn: title and migration audit

Initial abstract review, 2 November 2026, following the user's detailed deed-chain submission. Existing sources S15 and S67; follow-up S111. No new original deed or court-minute image was inspected in that initial pass. The original-deed follow-up below supersedes the deed access limit.

## What the published abstracts support

The title recital links Alexander's 1759 grant, inheritance by son Thomas, the 1777 sale, and Littlejohn's 1795 conveyance to Alston. This corroborates the already documented Alexander → Thomas relationship. Keep the Granville parcel separate from the 323½-acre tract.

Two citation corrections materially affect the proposed account:

- **Deed Book 5, p. 476**, not manuscript p. 94. Page 94 belongs to Bennett's published abstract volume, as cited by LiveAsFreePeople.
- Chilton's abstract describes **128 acres, a half share of the 256-acre grant**. It does not establish disposal of all Thomas's inherited land. The original must resolve the precise interest conveyed.

Chilton attaches **OCPQS 3/35** to this chain. His **3/385** citation instead accompanies the separate McCaver → Littlejohn title history at Deed Book 5, p. 479. Do not substitute one for the other without reading the minutes. The user's Book III p. 1084 reference is also reported by LiveAsFreePeople; its relationship to original versus published pagination needs checking.

## Chronology and limits

| Event | Present basis | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| 17 August 1759 Granville grant | Existing S67 and the inspected S102 wrapper: 256 acres, Patent Book 14, p. 449 | The wrapper contains no surviving shuck documents; the recorded patent remains a retrieval target. |
| 19 August 1772 will | Inspected original S50 | Names Thomas as Alexander's son. The date is execution of the will, not a proved date of death or vesting. |
| 20 October 1777 sale | Later title recital, S15 | Transaction date; original 1777 instrument not inspected. |
| November 1777 proof | Published account citing Haun, Book III p. 1084 | Keep separate from execution; the user-supplied quotation is not an independently checked manuscript transcription. |
| February 1778 Debow proof | Same published account, p. 1113, folio 16 | Hugh Teening is the printed name form; Tinnen is a proposed identification. Proof date alone does not establish execution that month. |
| December 1778 Surry entries | Published account of entries 1082 and 1172 | Thomas's entry was withdrawn in May 1779; Coleman's entry describes adjoining Thomas land. These support a place-and-associate inquiry, not completed title or an exact move date. |
| 15 March 1795 Littlejohn → Alston | S15 derived abstract | Retrospective title evidence; obtain the complete original and continuation. |

The user's interpretation of preparation for a westward move is plausible, but motive is not stated in the inspected material. Neither complete liquidation nor identity with every Surry Thomas follows from this title recital alone. The Surry identity should be tested with residence, spouse, signatures, witnesses, boundaries and the Hadley network. January 1777 marriage dates remain conflicting in the family-record copies; this land chain does not resolve them. Thomas → Simon and Simon → Jacob retain their derived-record grades.

## Sources checked and next retrieval

- [Chilton, Deed Book 5 abstracts](https://orangedeedbooks.blogspot.com/2018/02/orange-county-deed-book-5.html), entries 2596–2598; existing S15. Derived abstracts, not new independent originals.
- [LiveAsFreePeople, Thomas Lackey and Ann Hadley](https://liveasfreepeople.com/2016/06/02/thomas-lackey-and-ann-hadley/), deed, court and land-entry sections. Cites Bennett, Haun and the Winston entry-book publication. Its inherited dates and claims require checking against their underlying records.
- [Library Friends deed index, Book 5](https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/deeds/book-5/), target 5/476. Its individual target page failed in web retrieval; direct retrieval returned HTTP 429. No original image was obtained. Do not treat this as evidence the original is unavailable.
- [Official Orange County Register of Deeds](https://rod.orangecountync.gov/orangenc/): retrieve Book 5 pp. 476–477 with acknowledgments and recording endorsements, then resolve the competing minute references and obtain the original Surry entries and withdrawal.

No new relationship is inferred from a shared surname, and no Ancestry tree or hint decision was changed.


## Original-deed follow-up, 2 November 2026

**Access resolved:** six original recorded-deed pages were retrieved from the official Orange County Register of Deeds viewer and visually inspected: Book 5 pp. 476–477, Book 2 pp. 589–590, Book 11 pp. 261–262. Sources S112–S114. These are record-book images, not the parties' separately preserved original signed instruments. The county viewer's “No index information” message did not prevent image retrieval.

### S112: Littlejohn → Alston, Book 5 pp. 476–477

The 15 March 1795 indenture identifies William Littlejohn of Chowan County and George Alston of Granville County, both merchants. Consideration is £120 current money. The tract lies on the waters of the Middle Fork of Eno River in Orange County; bounds include James Carson's plantation formerly Lewis Garret's, Jonas Chamberlin's line, and the dividing corner/line of Carson and Thomas Lackey.

The original explicitly contains **128 acres, more or less**, described as a half or moiety of the 256-acre Granville grant of 17 August 1759. Its kinship clause reads:

> by descent to the said Thomas Lackey as will appear by the last Will and Testament of his father the said Alexander Lackey

It then recites Thomas's deed to William Littlejohn dated **20 October 1777**. This directly verifies the later deed's explicit father–son statement. The deed does not reproduce the full 1777 instrument or establish its acreage independently of the interest recited in 1795. It does not quote Alexander's will date.

Page 477 completes the receipt and proof: payment acknowledged 15 March 1795; James W. Smith proved execution and receipt before Judge John Williams on **2 August 1796**, with registration ordered. Witness name forms appear James W. Smith and J. Cail (latter reading retained cautiously). The next deed begins below and concerns a different twenty-acre Little River tract.

**Identity limit:** the 1795 deed names neither Ann Hadley nor Surry residence. Its Thomas boundary reference may preserve an earlier ownership name. It establishes paternity in the Orange title chain, not the Orange–Surry identity by itself. The original court minute and 1777 deed remain uninspected.

### S113: Alexander → William, Book 2 pp. 589–590

Dated **17 December 1769**, Alexander Lackey and William Lackey are both described as Orange County farmers. For £40, Alexander conveys half of a 323½-acre Eno River tract, with reference to an annexed plan and numbered corners. Page 590 has Alexander's and William's marks, witnesses **Thomas Lackey and John Woods**, and a January 1770 acknowledgment/registration order.

The deed states **no father–son relationship** among these men. It corroborates the associate cluster, including a Thomas witness, and establishes a distinct tract transaction. It does not by itself identify the witness as the testator's son or establish Thomas's later residence. The earlier S67 wording that this deed itself confirms Thomas's sonship is withdrawn; the inspected will and S112 supply that relationship evidence.

### S114: Solomon and Stephen Debow → Samuel Thompson, Book 11 pp. 261–262

Dated **4 June 1804**: grantors of Caswell County, grantee of Orange County; $750; 174 acres on Eno waters. Page 261 names John Taylor and William Guy and reaches a red oak identified as Thomas Lackey's corner, then follows his line. Page 262 completes the bounds and warranty, signatures, and proof by Herndon Haralson's oath on **10 April 1805** before Spruce Macay. The neighboring Leathers instrument above the start and the James Curry grant below the end are separate records.

This verifies the later Debow/Lackey boundary association from an original. It supplies neither Thomas's residence nor kinship and is not itself the Thomas → John Debow deed reportedly proved in February 1778. Do not equate a named boundary in 1804 with Thomas personally occupying land then.

### Ancestry and Surry controls in this follow-up

- Ancestry collection 60621, Thomas Lakey query: four displayed hits, involving Mecklenburg, Iredell and Lincoln, not a displayed Surry target. This single indexed query is not a complete variant or manuscript search.
- Same collection, Peter Coleman query: six displayed hits, with the exact Peter result in Ashe in 1803; no displayed Surry hit. A separate NC Land Grants master index lists a Surry Peter Coleman grant dated 1790. That discrepancy requires the original grant and county file; absence from this Ancestry result is not absence of a record.
- Collection 2882 was inspected and excluded as the Surry entry-book route: its underlying Tennessee record group concerns land in what became Tennessee.
- Ancestry title/keyword searches `Orange North Carolina Court` and `Surry` + `land` did not locate the desired original minute/entry book. These are narrow catalog results, not a holdings-wide negative.
- The publicly linked Winston entry-book PDF at the Rainwater Collection contains only three scanned pages, not the full entry book; text extraction did not expose the target entries. It does not upgrade the original Surry entries to inspected.

### Next triangulation

1. Obtain the original November 1777 and February 1778 minute pages; resolve 3/35, 3/385, 1084 and 1113 against the volume's pagination. Do not infer execution date from proof.
2. Locate the complete Thomas → John Debow conveyance or later recitals that identify its acreage, bounds and wife/residence. Compare against both the 128-acre Granville interest and the separate 323½-acre tract.
3. Retrieve Surry entries 1082 and 1172 and the May 1779 withdrawal; inspect the Coleman grant/file as a separate candidate, comparing waterways and boundaries before merging it with the 1778 entryman.
4. Compare any Thomas signature with the 1769 witness, if a signed original survives. A clerk's copied signature is not handwriting identification.

Six historical PDF images, stable viewer queries and SHA-256 checksums are preserved in the ignored local `evidence-images/orange-land-20261102/` archive. No parentage grade changes through Simon; no hint acceptance, tree edit, purchase or outreach occurred.


### Additional Surry access checkpoint

Located FamilySearch Digital Library item **455320**, identifier **2400477**, *Surrey county, North Carolina land entries 1778–1781*, credited to Virginia State Library and Joseph Winston: [catalog](https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/records/item/455320-surrey-county-north-carolina-land-entries-1778-1718), [viewer](https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/viewer/455320/?offset=0). The public browser exposes 218 pages and an offered full-PDF download. The catalog and viewer were inspected, but the download did not complete and target leaves were not read. The direct shell catalog request returned 403 while normal browser access worked. Whether this reproduction contains the handwritten book or a later transcription must be checked from its title/source leaves before assigning an evidence grade. This newly located route remains actionable, not an archival negative.

NC Land Grants' Peter Coleman detail route redirected to its sign-in page; only the public master-index entry was inspected. Do not claim its Surry grant's boundaries have been read.