Tax Lists

The Library owns two wonderful books that can help you advance your genealogical research by using tax lists.

The Sleuth Book For Genealogists : strategies for more successful family history research, by Emily Anne Croom, 929.1072 CRO. There is also a Reference copy at R929.1072 CRO GENEALOGY.

It is brimming with wonderful checklists, case studies, and novel approaches for using any number of genealogical source records.

The following brief excerpt from a review of this wonderful book is about tax records:

"Strategies for Using Tax Records, by Emily Anne Croom
...A number of states and towns have preserved tax records that date to their early years; others have not been so diligent. Nevertheless, the genealogist needs to use them whenever they exist... The surviving records are usually found in county courthouses or in state archives. Many have been microfilmed and are available from the Family History Library...Tax records are kin to land records because residents paid taxes on land they owned, as well as on slaves, horses, cattle, oxen, personal property, and luxury items... In some cases, specific items were taxed in a given year, such as certain items of furniture, mirrors, and window curtains in Virginia in 1815..."

The other book is The Beginner's Guide to Using Tax Lists, by Cornelius Carroll. 929.1 CAR

"This is a primer for making the best genealogical use of tax lists... [The author] differentiates between tax lists, quit rents, tithables, militia lists, censuses, and similar records and the laws that applied to them. Then, by focusing on the tax lists of Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee, he demonstrates how tax lists can be used for determining parentage, birth and death dates, indentured servitude, slavery, manumission, and racial status. In conjunction with other records, tax lists can be used to help determine the parentage of a female, the date of a marriage, migration routes, and the accuracy of family traditions..."