A free family history reference on historic surnames tied to the Great Dismal Swamp, covering maroon communities, the Nansemond tribe, and free colored families of the surrounding counties, with the places where those families settled.

If names in your family tree keep pointing you toward the counties along the Virginia and North Carolina border, especially Nansemond, Norfolk, Gates, Camden, or Currituck, you may be looking at descent from one of the communities that took shelter in and around the Great Dismal Swamp..

What's inside

• Maroon surnames drawn from period accounts and militia records tied to the swamp interior and its border settlements in Nansemond and Norfolk Counties, Virginia

• Nansemond surnames from the tribe's core territory in Nansemond County and surrounding areas of southeastern Virginia, drawing on the 1901 Mooney Smithsonian census and later records

• Free colored surnames from Gates, Camden, Currituck, Pasquotank, Perquimans, and Chowan Counties, North Carolina, and neighboring Virginia counties, including families tied to Deep Creek and South Mills