In 1997, G. Ray Thompson (professor of history at Salisbury University) transcribed wills and deeds of gift dating between 1648 and 1845 for people who lived in lower Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia. Included are introductions to the transcription, which was made from microfilm copies held at the Nabb Center. The group of wills in this volume was intentionally chosen to represent a few select families: the Bishop (9), Claywell (4), Ennis (20), Johnson (6), Hudson (7), Poynter (4), Rackliffe (5), Smith (4), and Townsend (2) families and a few other families who lived in or near Bogerternorton Hundred and who intermarried with one or more of the above families. A second group of wills represents a Worcester County family, the Atkinsons from Dividing Creek (4), and demonstrates their interrelations with families from Somerset County and Accomack and Northampton Counties on the eastern shore of Virginia.