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Hanover County, one of the Tidewater counties of Virginia, was formed from New Kent County in 1720. Hanover would become the parent of Louisa County, which was partitioned from Hanover in 1742, and much of present-day Albemarle County, which was formed in 1744 from Louisa and Goochland counties. Hanover's most famous son, of course, was the patriot Patrick Henry.

In this very scarce two-volume work, Mr. and Mrs. Glazebrook succeeded in extracting those documents pertaining to Hanover County that survived the burning of Richmond in April 1865 and that were not published in William Ronald Cocke's Hanover County Chancery Wills and Notes. The surviving materials consist of a great many deeds, wills, inventories, accounts, letters, depositions, etc., pertaining to Hanover County for the colonial and early Federal periods. Many of the suits, in particular, stem from the period prior to the French and Indian War. Among the richest sources examined by the Glazebrooks were the files of the United States District Court at Richmond. Other sources included early newspapers, an extensive list of Hanover marriages discovered at the Library of Virginia, and a list of non-resident land owners in Hanover County taken from the Land Books for 1814-1815. Both volumes feature extremely informative, annotated Introductions prepared by Leon M. Bazile, a leading authority on Hanover County history and genealogy, and complete name indexes at the back. With references to nearly 5,000 early inhabitants of Hanover County, this hard-to-find sourcebook will unquestionably be in great demand among researchers.