The Tidewater area of Virginia covers Henrico and Charles City Counties. These two counties were the parent counties of Goochland, Albemarle, Amherst, Buckingham, Fluvanna, Cumberland, Powhatan, Chesterfield, Richmond City, Prince George, Brunswick, Lunenburg, Halifax, Bedford, Pittsylvania, Mecklenburg, Charlotte, Amelia, Prince Edward, Nottoway, Dinwiddie, and Petersburg City.

Families mentioned in this volume include: Akin, Archer, Ashbrook, Babbicom - Parker - Milner, Batte, Branch, Burton, Cocke, Ligon, Lound, Pleasants, Woodson, and allied families of Henrico and surrounding counties. Jourdan takes the lineage from the earliest colonial records up through about 1800 using a wide range of documented sources: unpublished manuscripts, published family histories, magazine and newspaper articles, history books, biographies, abstracts of records, as well as some original records of Henrico County and the various counties which evolved from and adjoined the original county. A full-name index adds to the value of this work.