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Taxing Tales ... Unromantic, but reliable, and
sometimes quite revealing
Americans have been fighting taxes since the country's beginnings. In
fact, the Stamp Act, passed by the British
Parliament in 1765 as a means of raising revenue in the American colonies was the spark that kindled the
fires of the American Revolution. It required that all legal
documents, licenses, commercial contracts, newspapers, pamphlets, and playing cards carry a tax stamp.
It ignited organized resistance and provided the flaming creed of "no
taxation without representation" which drew many to the cause against the mother country.
On December 16, 1773, the so-called Boston
Tea Party took place wherein a group of citizens protested the British tax on tea imported the colonies.
The citizens of Boston would not permit the unloading of three British ships that had arrived in its harbor
laden with 342 chests of tea. The royal governor of Massachusetts would not allow the tea ships to return
to England until the duty had been paid. Disguised as Indians, Patriots boarded the vessels and emptied
the tea into Boston Harbor.
While some extant tax records are available for England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, American researchers
are blessed with an abundance of surviving tax records that can be polished into genealogical jewels.
The census taker might have missed your ancestors, but the taxman seldom did. Since every property owner
of real estate, personal property, and eligible voters in most areas appear on tax rolls, you often can
find your ancestors in the tax records even when they appear nowhere else. Tax records aid in such genealogical
research problems as:
Tracing
the moves of families from place to place
Identifying
taxpayers of the same name
Finding
clues of relationships that resulted from inheritances
While tax records vary in content according to the purposes for the taxation and the time period, you
often will discover some or all of the following data in such records:
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Name
and residence of the taxpayer and eligible males
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Description
of the real estate and its exact location, including water courses and acreage
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Slaves
by age and classification
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Livestock
(horses, cattle, sheep, hogs)
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Number
of males 21 and over; those eligible to vote
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Information
about inherited real estate and its assessment
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Number
of children of school age and under
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Rate
of assessment and the taxes collected
Among the most common types of tax records found in post-Revolutionary War American records are:
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Personal
property taxes
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Real
estate taxes
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Poll
taxes
Personal property taxes, starting as early as 1782 in many states, assessed taxes on various types of
personal property, including livestock, carriages and slaves. Every male 21 and over appeared on the list
as he became eligible to vote and to pay taxes on horses and other personal property. Even if your ancestor
did not own real estate, he probably owned a horse, and it is in these records where you might find him
mentioned.
Owners of real estate were required to pay taxes on their land as early as 1782. You will find them with
number of acres owned and described by locations on water courses. Widows and heirs of land are shown
as the taxpayers on their inherited properties.
Poll taxes were a tax of a specific sum levied on each person eligible within a certain class, such as
males of a certain age, without reference to his property, or lack of it.
During the colonial period in America you may find your ancestors on quit-rent rolls, tithables or poll
tax rolls. Quit-rent taxes were a yearly amount of money paid by landowners, generally at a rate per each
100 acres of land, and usually started several years after the owner had settled on the property. Quit
rents were abolished at the start of the Revolutionary War.
Tithables generally were persons 16 to 60 who were obliged to pay taxes regardless of their personal assets.
Depending on local laws, males were usually taxable at the ages of 16, 18 or 21 through about age 50 or
60, with some exceptions for veterans, ministers, paupers, and others. This tax was paid for support of
church minister or church wardens of parishes.
Poll taxes [general revenue] were a tax specified by law for every free man above the age of 21 and a
tax of every slave or servant above the age of 16. It was paid by the person or by the parent or guardian
of eligible persons. These records can be most helpful in sorting out the sons in a family.
The Family History Library of Salt Lake City has filmed many
tax records, making some of these records fairly easy to access through local Family History Centers.
Check the Family History Library Catalog for the state or colony and county of interest to learn what
tax records are available on microfilm. State archives and county courthouses are other repositories that
have tax records. Carefully abstract the tax information and study it you may be able to solve
some of your genealogical problems through the use of those so-called dry, dull tax records.
The U.S. government estimated that there were approximately 2,000 stills
in the Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia, and Tennessee in 1877, and it calculated that moonshiners
who made and sold this untaxed liquor were depriving the federal government of $2,500,000 a year in uncollected
taxes. Your ancestor might appear in court records for moonshining
not for making it, but for failure to pay taxes.
Delinquent Tax and Other Records
as Substitutes for Census Records
While tax lists demonstrate that people were in a certain place at a certain time, delinquent tax lists
demonstrate that a tax was not collected, perhaps because the tithable was insolvent or exempt from tax
due to age or infirmity, or because while the tithable was known to have been in a certain place at the
time of the assessment, he had departed that place through death or migration by the time the tax came
due. The tax collector had to provide an accounting of uncollected taxes, and so in some cases we have
a fine record in the form of delinquent tax lists. The content of such lists varies depending upon the
person who made the list, some being a list of bare names and others containing such information as the
tax collector was able to gather.
"A List of Persons Charged with Tax in Montgomery County [Virginia] for the Year 1787 & have
Removed before the Same Could have been Collected Taken in by Mr. Bird Smith, Commr"1
contains the full name of each tithable, the Virginia county or other state to which the person was believed
to have migrated, and the amounts of both the revenue tax and the county levy not collected from that
person. The first few entries tell us that Laudiwick AUELING migrated to Boutetourt [sic], Edward BAKER
to Russell, and Daniel BRITT to South Carolina. Some of the persons named on this list are mentioned in
Schreiner-Yantis and Love's book, The 1787 Census of Virginia, although the spelling of the names
might differ. For example, "Laudiwick AUELING" on the delinquent tax list above appears to be
the same person as "Lodwick ABELIN" on Montgomery County Tax List C (District of Bird Smith,
Commissioner) in The 1787 Census of Virginia.
The information provided on several lists varies widely. For example, an entry in Montgomery County, Virginia
1798-1799 Delinquent Tax Lists,2 on "A List of Delinquents
of Revenue Within the district of Ja Hogue for the Year 1798 & in the first Battalion of Militia &
in the 86th Regiment, Montgomery County Virginia, 24th August 1799" reads:
"Alexander HOLMES Tax on 3 Horses gone to Wythe 36 [cents]"
while on the list "John McHenry Insolvent Revenue 1798/1799 Sepr. Allowed," we read "George
MILES 2 Horses 23 [cents] In jail in Stanton" and "Henry HINKLE 4 Horses 48 [cents] gone to
the Devil M. CASTELLO Says So." [the last comment and its attribution were crossed out but
legible].
The last comment is atypical of the entries on such lists, but demonstrates that you never know what you
might find until you've searched everywhere.
Auditors' accounts survive at the Library of Virginia and reflect the reliance of military forces on provisioning
from local inhabitants, either voluntarily or involuntarily. When state money was used to pay someone
or when money was collected as the result of an act of the Virginia Legislature or funds were collected
or disbursed at the county level, an account had to be sent to the state auditor. Many types of accounts
exist, including militia lists, license reports, record of poor-house keepers, tobacco inspectors and
warehouse reports, lists of delinquent and insolvent taxpayers . . . and others, including the public
claims abstracted in these volumes from the court booklets in the Public Service Claims, Record Group
48, Library of Virginia, which contain information about supplies and services furnished to the armed
forces mostly during 1779-1781.3
All such records provide evidence of people residing in a certain place at a certain time and some provide
evidence of much more than would be found in a census record of the period.
SAMPLE ENTRY:
"Botetourt County Andrew HENRY allowed for 32-1/2# flour,
3/4 mutton for John CRAIG a Continental soldier; for boarding nursing the wife of Alex. CHAMBERS, a continental
soldier, when in child bed; keeping her 8-1/2 weeks and keeping her child 3 months by order of a magistrate."
The 1790 federal census of Virginia was destroyed, as were the lists for Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky,
New Jersey, and Tennessee, when the British burned the City of Washington during the War of 1812; however,
statistics already had been compiled and have survived showing that Virginia with its 747,160 inhabitants
was the most populous state. Kentucky's population was counted separately and does not figure into the
Virginia total in the federal accounting. However, Kentucky counties are included in
The 1787 Census of Virginia,4 compiled from Virginia
personal property tax lists for 1787, supplemented by other lists where necessary. The population of Virginia
with the Kentucky counties included represented more than one-fifth of the population of the U.S. at the
time of the 1790 federal census. By using the 1790 federal census, or substitutes such as tax lists, one
often can identify and/ or at least narrow the search to counties in which the surname appears.
SAMPLE ENTRY from "The Vestry Book of King William Parish, Va., 1707-1750"5
(Translated from the French . . .).
. . . Book of the Parish of King William, Containing the Proceedings
of the Vestry of Said Parish, Commencing December 20, 1707 [Lievre de la paroisse du roy guillaume contenant
les actes du vestry de lad paroisse commence le 20 Xber 1707]. The vestry assembled at Monocantown the
day and date stated above, Mr. PHILLIPPE, minister, being present. Ch. wardens: Abraham SOBLET, Louis
DUTARTRE. Vestry: Jacob AMMONET, Andre AUBRY, Jean FARCY, Jean FONUIELLE, Abraham SALLE, Gideon CHAMBON,
Jean MASERES, Timothee MORET, Pierre MASSOT, Anthoine TRABUE. It was decreed that the levy of the present
year be made in accordance with the account given below, amounting to the sum of twenty-nine pound silver,
currency of the country, in such manner as has been arranged by the preceding agreement with the vestry,
so that each person pay, following the present division, six shillings and one half-penny, there being
ninety-six persons on the list made and delivered to the clerk of the said vestry, who . . . a copy of
it to the church wardens.
- for Mr. Claude PHILLIPPE, minister, for the present year, from the
first of March past to the end of the present December, at thirty pounds per year 25 [pounds]
- for Mr. REYNAUD, clerk, for one year, from the first of January past
to the end of the present December, 3 [pounds]
- for Mr. SALLE for a register for the vestry and paper, 12 [shillings]
- for Mr. MARTIN for a gallon of wine and transportation 8 [shillings]
. . . Ninety-six persons at six shillings half-penny each makes 29 [pounds].
Done and decreed by the vestry the day and date above stated.
E. REYNAUD, C. of Vestry.
Endnotes:
1. "Montgomery County, Virginia, 1787 Delinquent Tax
Lists, Persons Removed, Exempt, or Delinquent," transcribed by Julia M. Case and published in The
Magazine of Virginia Genealogy, published quarterly by the Virginia Genealogical Society, Vol. 34,
No. 2, Spring 1996, 113-120.
2. "Montgomery County, Virginia 1798-1799 Delinquent
Tax Lists,"* transcribed by Julia M. Case and published in The Magazine of Virginia Genealogy,
Vol. 34, No. 3, Summer 1996, 242-254.
3. Abercrombie, Janice L. and Richard Slatten, Virginia
Revolutionary Publick Claims (in three volumes) (Athens, Ga.: Iberian Publishing Company, 1992).
4. Schreiner-Yantis, Nettie and Florene Speakman Love, The
1787 Census of Virginia: An Accounting of the Name of Every White Male Tithable Over 21 Years; the Number
of White Males between 16 & 21 Years; the Number of Slaves over 16 & Those Under 16 Years; Together
with a Listing of Their horses, Cattle & Carriages; and also the Names of all Persons to whom Ordinary
Licenses and Physician's Licenses Were Issued (in three volumes). (Springfield, Va.: Genealogical
Books in Print, 1987).
5. Virginia Tax Records from the Virginia Magazine of
History and Biography, the William and Mary College Quarterly, and Tyler's Quarterly (Baltimore,
Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1983).
[This compilation of articles previously published in the periodicals named in the title includes election
poll lists, personal property tax lists, rent rolls, quit rent rolls, vestry books, lists of county tithables,
lists of slave owners, and similar county and parish records that place people with their households and
property in a certain place at a certain time.]
*Tax and Fiscal Records, Montgomery County, Virginia, Original
Records, Archival and Information Services Division, Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.

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Suggested Reading
& References |
Carroll, Cornelius. The Beginner's Guide
to Using Tax Lists. Baltimore, Md.: Clearfield Company, Inc., by Genealogical
Publishing Co., Inc., 1997.
Greenwood, Val D. The Researcher's Guide
to American Genealogy (2nd edition). Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical
Publishing Co., Inc., 1990.
Linn, Jo White. Rowan County, North Carolina
Tax Lists 1757-1800: Annotated Transcriptions. Salisbury, N.C.: the author, 1995.
Szucs, Loretto Dennis & Sandra Hargreaves
Luebking. The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy (3rd edition). Salt Lake City, Utah:
Ancestry, Inc., 1997.
Woodson, Robert F. and Isobel B. (compilers).
Virginia Tithables from Burned Record Counties (Buckingham, Gloucester, Hanover,
James City, Stafford). (Copyright 1970 by Isobel B. Woodson; reprinted by Southern Historical Press, Inc.,
Greenville, South Carolina, 1982, 1990.) [This compilation includes tithable lists, tax accounts, and
rent rolls from the Library of Virginia, as well as a 1763 Hanover County quit rent roll from the Public
Record Office in London, England.]
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