A Taxing Matter: Using Tax Lists in Genealogy

Kentucky and Virginia have some of the most complete tax lists in the United States. Their value in research often goes unrecognized by even the experienced researcher. Tax lists can be a primary tool for solving difficult research problems and are invaluable when used with other records. Learn how to access original records, to best organize them for study, and to interpret their meaning. The lecture will use case studies to show their use in tracking individuals across time, estimating birth dates and death dates, separating individuals of the same name, determining the identity of other family members, and using them as substitutes for deeds, court records, and estate records in burned counties.

Tax rolls have traditionally been used as a “census substitute”—a list of names to show that someone of a certain name was in a certain jurisdiction, in this year or that. But tax rolls can be developed into so much more. This session demonstrates how to use tax rolls to separate same-name people, determine ages of men and date their marriages, establish times of death, identify parents and the maiden identity of wives, track migration, document inheritances when probate records are destroyed, and so much more!

Use USGS topographic maps, tract maps, plat maps, surveys, deeds, census records, and tax lists to reconstruct the neighborhood where your ancestor lived. Plat your ancestor’s land records and discover what unexpected clues might be discovered in the process.

The federal census gives us wonderful clues for our research, but the ten years between each census is a long time. This presentation will discuss records that can be used to fill in the gap and add more points to your ancestor's timeline.

Benjamin Franklin is said to have stated, "The only things certain in life are death and taxes." Taxation can take (and has taken) many forms. The mission of this presentation is to discuss some of they ways in which our ancestors were taxed, the records that were created, and where…

They stand there behind those gates: marble and granite memorials to those who went before. The stones in those cemeteries and the stories they tell for our families are of crucial importance to genealogists. How can we best get access to the land where they stand, and photograph them to capture the stories they tell?

The brickwalls of a family tree are no match for prison walls. From intake photo to receipts for cash and clothes when they were released, prisoners in jails and prisons were recorded and documented, often in stunning detail. Learn what records may exist – and where – about your family’s black sheep.

One of the most common experiences of our ancestors with the courts was the requirement of jury service. Learn to understand who could and couldn't serve, how jurors were called, and how to use jury lists in family research.

Those every-10-years U.S. censuses are goldmines of names, ages and birthplaces for members of our families. But there's so much more in the census records if we know where to look: everything from socioeconomic status to crops grown or products made, from school attendance to marriage dates, from physical disabilities…