RLP 335: English Parish and Tax Records with Jessica Morgan

Nicole (1s):
This is Research Like a Pro episode 335 England Parish, Chest and Tax Records with Jessica Morgan. Welcome to Research Like a Pro a Genealogy Podcast about taking your research to the next level, hosted by Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder accredited genealogy professional. Diana and Nicole are the mother-daughter team at FamilyLocket.com and the authors of Research Like a Pro A Genealogist Guide. With Robin Wirthlin they also co-authored the companion volume, Research Like a Pro with DNA. Join Diana and Nicole as they discuss how to stay organized, make progress in their research and solve difficult cases. Let’s go.

Nicole (42s):
Today’s episode is sponsored by Newspapers.com. Hi everyone, welcome to Research Like a Pro today.

Diana (49s):
Hi Nicole, how are you doing?

Nicole (52s):
Oh, fantastic, because I’m just having too much fun with my research on the Harris family and it’s just been delightful to uncover so many newspaper records and right now I’m actually working on looking into a county deed index that’s online, but not in the FamilySearch catalog, but on their county website and just working on making a list of things I want to order. So I’m gonna mail that over to them hopefully today.

Diana (1m 16s):
That is great. How exciting that they have that available and that you can get what you need without having to go there in person.

Nicole (1m 24s):
Right. Sometimes I see, you know, a county that doesn’t have any deed books digitized at FamilySearch and that I despair. But it was great to see that this county has indexed everything in a database on their county website and made it, you know, pretty simple to search through. I just wish I could get the images without ordering them, but I’m glad there’s an option available to do that.

Diana (1m 44s):
Great, well I’m excited to see what you find.

Nicole (1m 47s):
Me too.

Diana (1m 49s):
Well, let’s do some announcements. We have our Research Like a Pro Webinar Series for 2024, winding up on Tuesday, December 10th at 11:00 AM Mountain. And this one I will be presenting my case study about Who Was Clemsy Cline’s Father? DNA and Indirect Evidence Provide a Candidate in this Burned County Case Study. So I have been talking a lot about Clemsy Cline at the beginning of some of these podcasts for the last probably year. And so this webinar will bring it all together, three projects that come together to prove her father. So I’m excited to share that my topics are Burned Counties, Arkansas, Tax Records, Federal Land Records, Cluster Research, Boundary Changes, Census Records, DNA, Indirect Evidence.

Diana (2m 42s):
This is actually a case that I never thought I could solve and so it will be so fun to outline the documentary evidence that gave me a good hypothesis and then how DNA added more evidence to that hypothesis. Well the next Research Like a Pro DNA study group begins February 2025 and the dates are February 5th to May 14th. Early Bird registration is now open and we hope you’ll consider joining us. The Peer Group Leader application is on our website. If you’re interested in being a peer group leader and receiving complimentary registration and leading a small group of people.

Diana (3m 22s):
We love our peer group leaders and are so appreciative for people who want to do the process with this and help others. As always, join our newsletter for coupons and the news of what we are doing on FamilyLocket. And we are also very excited to be going in person to RootsTech, which will be held March 6th through 8th in Salt Lake City. Nicole and I’ll both be presenting several lectures and we hope to see many of you there.

Nicole (3m 52s):
Well, today we are excited to have one of our FamilyLocket experts with us, Jessica Morgan. Hi Jessica.

Jessica Morgan (3m 59s):
Hey Nicole.

Nicole (4m 0s):
Thanks for being here. I’m excited to tell our listeners about you and they might remember that you were with us for our Irish series in episodes 136 and 137 and it was so great to learn about researching in Ireland with you, which is such a challenging topic. And today we’re back talking about the British Isles again, which is your specialty. So a little bit about Jessica, Jessica Taylor Morgan is an accredited genealogist with ICAP Gen who loves helping people discover their past. She worked as a professional genealogist at Ancestry for nine years, helping both clients and Ancestry’s public relations team. It’s really cool that she provided research for shows like Who Do You Think You Are?, Long Lost Family, and a New Leaf, and also an award-winning Sundance film called Railroad Ties.

Nicole (4m 54s):
Jessica is a graduate in medieval history and specializes in the UK, Irish, Scottish, US and immigration research. She’s a professional writer and loves creating stories that help people engage and explore their family tree. So welcome Jessica. And what is the name of your specialty within ICAP Gen? Is it just called British Isles or what is it called?

Jessica Morgan (5m 14s):
I believe it’s just called England.

Nicole (5m 16s):
England. Oh, got it.

Jessica Morgan (5m 18s):
Yeah, because there’s different regions that you can test like within the United Kingdom that you can specialize in.

Nicole (5m 22s):
Oh great. So is there a like a separate Irish one?

Jessica Morgan (5m 25s):
Yeah, so there’s an Irish one, there’s a Scottish one, I think more recently, I hope I’m not wrong, but I think that they, they have a Welsh one too that you can specialize in, so that’s exciting. But yeah, I’m specifically England myself.

Nicole (5m 39s):
Wonderful.

Diana (5m 41s):
Yes, I think Wales is one of the new ones, so that is great. It’s so interesting that there are real differences between those different areas in the UK but I’ll just note that Jessica could be accredited to any of those because she is amazing researcher in Ireland, Scotland and England. So I don’t know about Wales. Have you done much Welsh research

Jessica Morgan (6m 5s):
Not enough to like be confident enough to be accredited in it.

Diana (6m 9s):
Yeah, I’m sure it’s really similar though to the rest of them, but each region does have its own little specific things that are different. Well, today we are going to be talking all about England, which is Jessica’s accreditation region in one of her specialties. But we’re going to talk about the records that we don’t use as often and what do we do when we do not have the things that we rely on in England, which are the birth marriages and deaths. And if any of you have researched England, you know that the British government began documenting these vital records in 1837, but before that it was up to the Church of England to record the life events.

Diana (6m 52s):
And so those are so helpful and important, but there are times when those are not available and you can’t find a baptism or your couple married outside of the Church of England or they live long before their parish was established. And so what do we do then when we’re trying to move further back in our pedigree? So Jessica, what is the first resource we should turn to when we don’t have those birth marriage and death records?

Jessica Morgan (7m 20s):
Well I think it’s really easy to throw up your hands if you don’t find the parish record that you’re looking for and say, well that’s it. That’s as far as I can go back. But there are really good resources for extending your family history further that just go beyond that typical baptism marriage and burial that we’re so familiar with in English research. So the first set of collections I wanna talk about are called the Parish Chest Records. And this is basically a, a catchall resource because the parish was just more than baptisms, marriages and burials that they recorded. The parish was very involved in the residents lives, including assigning apprenticeships, documenting church expenses, taking care of the poor, and there’s documentation for all of that that your ancestor could appear in.

Jessica Morgan (8m 14s):
So there’s different types of papers within the Parish Chest Records that I want to talk about. First are settlement papers. So if your ancestor moved from one parish to another parish and there was a suspicion that they might be reliant on the new parish for for poor relief because that’s the thing, the parish was responsible for the care of the poor within their parish. And needless to say, they didn’t want people moving in who couldn’t provide for themselves. So basically if your ancestor was a newcomer to the parish, their name might appear in settlement papers, which basically were a certificate indicating that their home parish would take them back if they needed monetary relief.

Jessica Morgan (9m 0s):
So if you don’t know where your ancestor originally came from, then they could have settlement papers in their current parish, which names their original home parish and which could be a great way to redirect your research in the future. So yeah, anyone who didn’t have legal settlement in their current parish could be examined by church warden and be potentially removed. So yeah, there’s a lot of good information in in settlement papers including examinations, removal orders, occupation, their employment history, family members who could support them. But yeah, particularly that parish of origin is, is a really good piece of information that you can find in those settlement papers that you might not find in regular parish records themselves.

Diana (9m 48s):
I think that is so fascinating and it’s really interesting because some of these things transferred to the colonies and we see some of these same types of records in the states. I know that I had a project where someone had papers recommending them to the next church group. It wasn’t a Church of England parish, it was another church group. But it’s really fascinating to think about how some of these customs of record keeping perhaps came across the pond with them. So I love that idea of how important it would be to try to track down some Parish Chest Records. Yeah,

Nicole (10m 26s):
Those are really interesting records and it sounds like they’re less common and probably wouldn’t find them for all of our ancestors in England, but for every once in a while we might find one for one of them. Is that right?

Jessica Morgan (10m 40s):
Yeah, so it’s not a set thing where every single person who moves has to file settlement papers. Basically it, they were more about people whom the, like church wardens were concerned about becoming a financial liability to the parish. Particularly people who were coming into a parish who didn’t already have family there who they could rely on for monetary relief, that they were just coming by themselves and basically strangers to the parish, then you’re more likely to see settlement papers certifying that they will get monetary relief elsewhere, that they will not be a burden on the parish if they fell on hard times. But still definitely a, a good resource to check out if you are coming up with blanks for your ancestor.

Nicole (11m 26s):
For sure. And that reminded me of the historical fiction novel that I just finished the whole series of, Poldark by Winston Graham, and in their parish they were very wary of any strangers coming in that weren’t related to anyone. And it’s just interesting to hear kind of the reasons for why people often moved to be with family and that kind of thing because there was this kind of idea of you’re not really welcome here if you are gonna start like being a financial liability. Yeah, yeah. All right, well let’s talk about another type of papers, the bastardy papers.

Jessica Morgan (12m 1s):
Yes. So bastardy papers are really interesting. So basically again the, the parish really didn’t want to put money where it didn’t have to. So that includes people who came from the outside who were strangers of the parish and that also included the welfare of children. So any children born illegitimate within a parish, the parish church was responsible for putting forth funds and support to help that child’s upbringing. Needless to say, the parish was very motivated to look for the child’s biological father and put the on of the payment and child support on him rather than having to turn out their own pockets for that.

Jessica Morgan (12m 45s):
So yeah, if a, if a child was born outta wedlock, then the church would perform an investigation looking for the child’s birth father. And the result of that in records are what are called bastardy papers or bastardy bonds where oftentimes you would get the mother of the child like their testimony as to who they believe the father was. So basically the, the bastardy bond itself would be a bond between the biological father and the parish promising to put forth X amount of money for the care of their illegitimate child. If Diana doesn’t mind me calling out on this, but I recently did some, some research for her family tree and there was a child born illegitimate.

Jessica Morgan (13m 33s):
So I looked into if there was bastardy bonds or papers related to that child and there wasn’t anything on FamilySearch, but that’s where you really need to dig deeper. And I contacted the local county archives where this parish was located and they confirmed that they had bastardy bonds for that parish and that her ancestors’ name was there. And so I was able to get a bastardy bond naming, naming the mother and the father of the child promising to pay X amount for the child’s care. And it was really fascinating to see all of that play out.

Nicole (14m 10s):
Yes, that is fascinating. And I read the research that you did on our family and it was wonderful and it was cool to see some of those lesser known records that you were able to obtain. And with these illegitimate births, which we have several in that line, which was shocking to me at first, but then it made sense to me that they were all of a similar class in England at this time and it was much more common among the more poor class and those who were servants and that kind of thing. And I believe this case, wasn’t she a servant in the household of the biological father?

Jessica Morgan (14m 42s):
I don’t quite remember. I,

Nicole (14m 45s):
There’s somebody in that line who was, that was illegitimate, but I can’t remember the exact one that you did. But anyway, it is strange but interesting to see so many illegitimate births. And in fact, I did one of my projects in Pro Gen about Thomas Bradley, who is one of our ancestors who had several illegitimate children, including our ancestor, Sarah Jane Miller who didn’t take his last name obviously because the parents weren’t married, and he was named in the LDS church baptism record when Sarah Jane was baptized at age 14 and then her and her mother immigrated to the US. And so digging into Thomas Bradley, I was able to find one of his bastardy bonds for another illegitimate child that he had with a different woman. So that was fascinating.

Nicole (15m 25s):
I never found bastardy paper or bond for Sarah Jane, but he had another one and then he himself was illegitimate as well as Ann Miller. And so it was just so many illegitimate births that it was fascinating to dive into that in that time period and understand why it seemed common, but it really wasn’t common among the whole population. But in that place and in that FAN club it was somewhat common.

Jessica Morgan (15m 49s):
Yeah, and exactly. And like you touched upon with, with LDS baptisms, they’ll name both the mother and the father, but you’re not so lucky when you look at just Church of England baptisms. They’ll just say, oh, the child was base born or natural born or illegitimate. Those are all terms for illegitimacy and only name the mother’s name. And a lot of times people will look at that and say, well okay that’s that. I guess I’ll never find the father because it’s not in the baptism record. But no, if you see that you have an ancestor who was born illegitimate, definitely go into the, the bastardy bonds or the bastardy papers of that parish because there’s a good chance that the mother named the father of the child, like reported his name to the parish so that they could get a child support from him.

Jessica Morgan (16m 37s):
If the FamilySearch website doesn’t have the bastardy bonds for that parish contact the archives, they will definitely be there. And there’s, there’s a very good chance that the father is named there. So that’s a very good reason to go beyond the baptism record and what you find on like at face value and go into Parish Chest Records.

Diana (16m 58s):
What a fun discussion and what an interesting topic. I remember in some of the reading I’ve done that the midwives were really charged to figure out the name of the father if the woman would not provide it, you know, during the pregnancy when she’s there in labor and suffering, the midwife would try to get the name of the, the man out of the woman. So you know, it all comes down to economics doesn’t, it was all about the money. They wanted to make sure that somebody was going to support this child. Which brings us to our next topic, which is apprenticeships. And that also has to do with taking care of children who are poor.

Jessica Morgan (17m 39s):
Yep. And again, it was, it was all about the money. So the parishes were responsible for arranging apprenticeships for, for poor and orphaned children. So the child would be s assigned to a, a master of a trade. It could be anything from farming to tanning to factory work. And apprenticeship would usually last about seven years. Sometimes it would be even without the consent of the parents, if there was a family in a parish that was poor and was relying on on the assistance of the parish, oftentimes the parish would farm their children out to other parishes for apprenticeships so that they wouldn’t have to cover the cost of that child.

Jessica Morgan (18m 22s):
It was a very, it was a very cold calculated system where again, the, the funds and the, and the money was the priority. So the parish overseers would often send the children away to neighboring parishes. So if your ancestor was employed in a trade, odds are they were originally an apprentice to someone and they have apprenticeship papers. If, odds are, they were poor then the parish would’ve arranged that, so the parish apprenticeship records, you should be able to find them in there. So apprenticeship papers, again, these are all in the Parish Chest Records and the apprenticeship papers may provide child’s name their age, their home parish sometimes might even name their parents.

Jessica Morgan (19m 8s):
So it’s a really, it’s a really good resource if you are coming up with brick walls for your ancestor. But they were clearly employed in a trade and were probably lower class than odds are their parish had assigned them to a master at a young age and those apprenticeship papers could provide some further insight about them.

Diana (19m 31s):
That’s such a good tip because sometimes we see a person living in a parish but there’s no one else of that name, that surname anywhere and you don’t know where to start looking for their possible family of origin. So this could absolutely give you that clue that you need to get back to the home parish. So. Oh, very fascinating.

Nicole (19m 52s):
Yeah, I agree. I was just looking at the bastardy bonds that Jessica found for our ancestor Edward Ley and it’s just cool to see these old records that are held in the archives that are hard to get and that are only available, you know, through reaching out and getting those. So it’s just interesting to see those lesser known records. So thanks for getting that for us Jessica.

Jessica Morgan (20m 16s):
Yeah, of course. And that’s why it’s so important to not just stop at parish records and not just stop at like the FamilySearch or websites or the family history catalog, but go deeper and and go into those archives ’cause there’s so many archives in England that are very helpful if you just reach out to them and, and just tell them what you need. They’re very good about, about providing good service and getting back to you and sending you digitized copies of things. So yeah, there could be a whole lot of information that that’s not online but it iss just waiting for you to discover.

Nicole (20m 55s):
Absolutely. Can you tell us about overseer, church warden and Constable accounts? What are those and why might they be helpful?

Jessica Morgan (21m 3s):
Yes, so those are all, again, in the Parish Chest Records and they’re kind of a catchall for, for other activities that went on in the parish. So we’re talking meeting minutes, expense reports, like crime reports even that are reported by the parish overseers and constables. This information, unfortunately, like these papers because they’re catchall, they’re not very consistent or organized, a lot of times they’re digitized and it’s just kind of a mess of papers that you sift through. But they can still provide details about your ancestors day-to-day life. For example, if, if your ancestor did some work for the parish, like if they worked on a road or leased out some property to the church or helped do some repair work to the church building, then their services would be recorded in the parish also, if your ancestor committed a crime that could have been noted, which is always a fun, interesting tidbits for your family stories.

Jessica Morgan (22m 5s):
So yeah, like there’s, there’s a lot of different in interesting information that can be found in, in these overseer accounts that can just paint a, a more detailed picture of your ancestors’ day-to-day life. And even if your ancestor like, even if their name isn’t specifically in the parish records, it’s a great way to get an idea about just life in the parish in general about the environment, about the type of people, about the priorities and concerns within the parish itself. It’s just a great, it’s some great flavor text for the way their ancestors lived. So if you have ancestors who lived for just generations and generations within the same parish, then it’s, this is a really nice resource to, to get an idea of the way your ancestors lived, not just for one generation but for multiple generations.

Jessica Morgan (23m 1s):
So again, all in that parish chest and again, available at archives if not like on family search.

Nicole (23m 9s):
That is such a great idea to use these records as a way to understand the historical context and what was going on in the parish. I love that.

Diana (23m 18s):
Well you’ve hinted at where to find these records, but let’s just talk for a minute about some specifics about how to find these Parish Chest Records. So what is your go-to place? What is your process for finding them?

Jessica Morgan (23m 34s):
Yeah, so first I always check the FamilySearch library because many of the Parish Chest Records are either on microfilm or have been digitized at the FamilySearch library in Salt Lake City. So what I do is I go to the FamilySearch catalog, I type the parish name and the county in the place field in the catalog and you should see the name of the parish pop up as a, as a list of results. And then once you click on that you’ll get a list of records all pertain that FamilySearch library has for that parish on the right hand side. And one of those should be titled church records. So when you click on church records then you’ll see specifically a list of everything that the FamilySearch library has that’s related to that specific parish.

Jessica Morgan (24m 20s):
And if there are Parish Chest Records, then you’ll see among amongst that list something called either Parish Chest or Poor Law Records. That was kind of another, another term used for that. So if you see that, then you can click on that and you’ll get just like a big list of everything within the parish chest or the poor law records for the parish. So you’ll see whether they have bastardy bonds or whether they have overseer records or settlement papers and the corresponding film number and a camera icon if that film has been digitized and is viewable online.

Jessica Morgan (25m 5s):
Unfortunately most parish chest records haven’t been indexed and so they would need to be searched by hand. So that’s, that’s a little bit more of the tedious part. And if Family Search doesn’t have parish chest records available for your parish of interest, again, I will just keep singing this tune, go to the archives or record office for the county where your parish was located. So it could be the Darbyshire record office, it could be the Herefordshire Archives. If you just Google you should get the, the archives or the record office that’s responsible for that county in England and their website should have a either a records catalog or contact information and you can reach out to them.

Jessica Morgan (25m 46s):
And again, I’ve always had good experiences with these different archives. They’re very good about, no question is too small or silly, they’re happy to help you and they’re there to help you. So yeah, if you’re not finding what you’re looking for in the Family Search catalog, you reach out to them and they can work with you. And oftentimes they just have so much information and they have so many records and they can, they should be able to point you in the right direction.

Diana (26m 12s):
Oh that’s great. And if you’re following the Research Like a Pro process, this would all be part of your locality research, trying to figure out where those records are, contacting the archives to see what’s available there, finding those records on family search. So as we know that can be several hours of work, just really learning about the locality in England that would be so important. It is important in every area but I think especially in England, maybe we’re not quite as familiar with the records. Well thanks for taking us through that. Now let’s have a word from our sponsor. Imagine curling up in a cozy chair scrolling through Newspapers.com and discovering a family member smiling back at you in a photo you’ve never seen before.

Diana (26m 57s):
Give the genealogy lover in your life a gift subscription to Newspapers.com and make this a reality. They’ll break through genealogy brick walls with access to hundreds of years of wedding announcements, obituaries, family stories and so much more. There’s always something new to discover on Newspapers.com, with a growing archive of over 1 billion pages from the US, UK, Canada, Australia and beyond. Long after other gifts are forgotten, a Newspapers.com gift subscription will continue to delight, make the past the best present ever. For listeners of today’s show, Newspapers.com is offering 20% off gift subscriptions for a limited time, Just use the code FamilyLocket at checkout.

Nicole (27m 38s):
While I’ve been using Newspapers.com a lot lately and I just have to say it’s really good, I love it and I’m very glad I have a subscription. Well, going back to records outside of the basic birth, marriage and death, we have tax records and you might think these aren’t helpful to genealogy because you might think they only named the individual paying the tax and this is typically the head of a household who met the taxes, qualifications like age. So a male age 16 to 50 would be a normal age range for that in the US but tax records are much more valuable than you might think. They date back further than censuses, vital records, parish records and they can help you place your family in a particular place in time and that can help you locate even more records.

Nicole (28m 28s):
So some of the oldest records in England were made for the purpose of taxes. So Jessica, tell us some more about what types of tax records are available in England and how they might be helpful to us.

Jessica Morgan (28m 41s):
Yes, absolutely. So we’re, this is outside the parish chest records we’re moving on. So tax records are kept separately and yeah there, there are a lot of different types of of taxes that were, that were enacted in England. First is the hearth and window tax. So from 1662 to 1689 every household in England and Wales was taxed two shillings a year for each fireplace hearth or stove that it owned, which is very intense and I know that there are pictures you can find of some old ancestral houses where there are clearly windows but they’ve been boarded up or walled up so that they wouldn’t have to pay those extra shillings for the windows for the tax, which is really interesting.

Jessica Morgan (29m 31s):
So this tax was replaced by the window tax dated 1696 to 1851. Basically the hearth and window tax lists the taxpayer’s name and the amount paid. And it’s interesting because the amount that they paid can actually tell you a little bit about their home, like how many hearths or windows that they had and kinda give you an idea of the size of the home. Fortunately the Hearth Tax, Hearth Tax Digital online has records covering Bristol, Cheshire, Coventry, Durham, Essex, Kenton, Sussex, Yorkshire, and parts of Yorkshire and Westmoreland. So if your ancestor lived in any of those counties, you can go onto Hearth Tax Digital and search for their name and see what you can find.

Jessica Morgan (30m 15s):
Also the National Archives website includes the Hearth Tax, their collection number specifically for that collection is E179. If you search in that database it can give you a reference number with which you can order your Ancestors’ Hearth tax record through the National Archives. MyHeritage also has a searchable database. It’s just a really handy tool, especially if you’re going back and you’re just not finding a lot about your ancestors in parish records, especially going into the early 1700s.,1600s. Hearth and Window tax can not only give you your ancestors’ name but also as I said before, just give you an idea of of their home and the like living situation and even maybe the economical situation that they were in.

Nicole (31m 5s):
Wonderful, that is so cool And I’ve never learned about this before so thanks for bringing it to our attention and it’s good to know kind of that you can use this for earlier times, you know in the early 1700s and stuff.

Diana (31m 18s):
Well I just had to to look at that really quick because we do have ancestors in Kent County, which is one of the ones mentioned in that website our Kelsey family and I see some hits for a John Kelsey, a widow Kelsey and the date is 1664 so that is really early and so cool and I am pretty sure they probably are related ’cause the family was there a really long time. How fun. Thank you.

Jessica Morgan (31m 47s):
That’s great.

Diana (31m 48s):
We just don’t know what we don’t know. So another tax that we can talk about is the Marriage Duty Act. So what is this all about?

Jessica Morgan (31m 58s):
Yeah, so the Marriage Duty Act and also the subsequent Stamp Duty Act. So the Marriage Duty Act covered 1695 to 1706 and the Stamp Duty Act covered 1783 to 1794. And what these were were, they were basically attacks on baptisms, marriages, and burials recorded in the parish register. So if you wanted those events recorded, you had to pay a tax on them. So this tax is a great substitute if your ancestors parish records are missing or damaged, they could be in the tax collection and give you a little bit information.

Jessica Morgan (32m 39s):
Unfortunately many of these tax records haven’t survived, but it’s always worth checking the county record office for your ancestors’ home parish just in case. We know that marriage duty records survive for parts of London, Bristol, Lester, Shrewsbury, Southampton and Wiltshire. So if you have an ancestor whose parish records like have been destroyed and you are looking for more information, maybe try those, the marriage duties and the stamp duties and see if, if such records exist for the county where your parish is located and see if you can be able to find some more information through that.

Diana (33m 15s):
That is so funny that the government had, was thinking of ways to get more money, right? And so they’re going to tax them just for those basic events and having those recorded

Jessica Morgan (33m 27s):
And sometimes because of those taxes some families would actually wait. Like I have seen a few instances of of a family like just all baptizing their children at the same time because they had to like save up to afford to be able to do that.

Diana (33m 43s):
I have seen that as well. So because we have those specific dates for the Stamp Duty act and the Marriage Duty Act, if that is happening within those dates, that maybe would be a good clue to that.

Jessica Morgan (33m 57s):
Absolutely.

Nicole (33m 58s):
Oh well what about Land Tax? Tell us more about that kind of common tax that we’re used to.

Jessica Morgan (34m 4s):
Yeah, so that Land Tax is definitely the most common and it is the largest tax collection that we have for for England. So the Land Tax applied to land worth over a certain value, which was initially 20 shillings when the tax was first created and the tax span from 1693 to 1963. It is a very large collection. So the most surviving rec, most surviving records however cover 1780 to 1832. So that’s a bit more narrow window, but the Land Tax lists own landowners, tenants and subtenants as well as the type of land and the tax that was owed and the tax was usually collected annually.

Jessica Morgan (34m 52s):
So it can give you an idea of your ancestors’ movements and the transitioning ownership of their land. So if they were a person of means and had land, you can see who else that land went to and if your ancestor left the parish. So oftentimes not all of the occupiers of a of a property were documented in the Land Tax. It was typically just the people who were monetarily responsible for that property. But it’s still worthwhile to check out for your ancestor. So the way you can search this resource is to go to the family search catalog and enter your ancestors county or parish with a phrase, Land Tax in that keywords field and see what records pop up and are available for that collection.

Jessica Morgan (35m 37s):
Again, it’s a pretty big collection and if you’re, if you’re confident your ancestor had some land, then that’s definitely worth investigating.

Nicole (35m 44s):
Ooh, I will have to do that because I know Thomas Bradley, our ancestor who I mentioned earlier, had a cottage that he left in his will to one of his illegitimate son I guess, and our grandson of his legitimate sin. So I think that might be taxed, I should go look for that.

Jessica Morgan (36m 2s):
Yeah, absolutely. That would be really worthwhile.

Diana (36m 4s):
Well, and the fact that it lists the tenants and subtenants means that you’re going to also have people that didn’t own land. Is that correct? That we’re just leasing the land mentioned?

Jessica Morgan (36m 16s):
Yeah, yeah. So basically the, the tenants and subtenants, so it’s basically renters and sub renters. Again, unfortunately it’s not like a census where you’re getting everybody who lived on the property, but you’re getting everybody who, who was financially responsible for paying for their rent or their lease of the land. So yeah, even if your ancestor didn’t outright own a piece of property, if they were renting from someone, then their name could still show up in the Land Tax.

Diana (36m 43s):
That’s really great to know because if we are tracing a person, we want to get that timeline filled out as best as possible and so that could just add another little piece there. So really good to know. Thank you. Well one that I’m really interested in, because I use this a lot in my US history is the poll tax. And so I’m curious about what we do with that in England and there’s also something called a Lay subsidy. So tell us about these.

Jessica Morgan (37m 14s):
Yes, so the poll tax and lay subsidies, these are really great in English research because they’re among the few pre-1600s records that we have for England that are of genealogical value. So the poll taxes were a series of personal taxes in the 14th to 17th centuries and the purpose of them were really to fund conflicts abroad, such as like the hundred Years War in France. Poll tax assessments were what they were called, recorded everyone who was eligible to pay the tax, which were specifically individuals aged 16 and over who weren’t receiving poor relief. So if your ancestor was in a parish, over 16, and weren’t considered impoverished, then they could have been part of the poll taxes, which would be a really great find because, because parish records, especially Church of England parish records only go back so far.

Jessica Morgan (38m 10s):
So having those taxes are just one of the very few records that you could find that has your ancestors’ name on it. Before the 1500s, the poll taxes were organized by county or by hundred, which is a jurisdiction between counties and parishes. So you got parishes, hundreds and then counties. So if you can figure out the hundred that your ancestors parish was under, you can type that into the Family Search catalog and see if there is a, a poll tax associated with that, that the Family Search has. Or you can again contact the local county archives or record office. So Lay Subsidies meanwhile, were taxes on personal property that go all the way back to the 1100s.

Jessica Morgan (38m 56s):
So 1100 to 1600 church properties were often exempt from this taxed and subsidies from 1334 to 1523 only documented taxes by town. But from 1523 onward, that’s when it started listing individual tax payers by name and again, typically anyone over 16 and who had an income or land worth more than two pounds because that was the going right back. Then another place you can look for poll taxes and lay subsidies are also at the National Archives website and they are part of a database called E179. So if you check out E179 in the National Archives website, it’ll bring up a database that’s searchable by Parish and you can check that out for your early, early ancestors living in a given parish.

Diana (39m 49s):
Well that is so fascinating to hear that the reason they enacted the poll tax laws was to fund war. You know, it’s, it’s always good to know why these things were happening and why these records were created in the first place. So that’s fascinating. Now, one of the things that I think is really helpful is what you have recommended before, and that is the book Ancestral Trails, the Complete Guide to British Genealogy and Family History, Second Edition. And this is by Mark D Herber, H-E-R-B-E-R. And I know I have a copy of that and it is a very thick book. I would imagine, Jessica, you’ve probably read the entire book and studied it.

Jessica Morgan (40m 31s):
I’ve got so many sticky notebook marks in that thing. It’s like this long rainbow. But it is such a good book. It’s, it basically answers any questions that you could have about, about doing family history in England

Diana (40m 46s):
And would go into detail about some of these things we’ve talked about today and really helping people understand the records, why they were created, where to find them, what to do with them. Great resource.

Jessica Morgan (40m 59s):
Absolutely highly recommend.

Nicole (40m 60s):
This has been so eye-opening. Thank you Jessica, for sharing these records with us and we look forward to talking about this again in our next episode and going over some of the other records that can help us in England.

Jessica Morgan (41m 14s):
Yeah, I’m looking forward to it.

Nicole (41m 16s):
Alright, thanks for listening everyone. We’ll talk to you again next week.

Diana (41m 22s):
Bye-bye.

Jessica Morgan (41m 22s):
Bye.

Nicole (41m 21s):
Thank you for listening. We hope that something you heard today will help you make progress in your research. If you want to learn more, purchase our books, Research Like a Pro and Research Like a Pro with DNA on Amazon.com and other booksellers. You can also register for our online courses or study groups of the same names. Learn more at FamilyLocket.com/services. To share your progress and ask questions, join our private Facebook group by sending us your book receipt or joining our courses to get updates in your email inbox each Monday, subscribe to our newsletter at FamilyLocket.com/newsletter. Please subscribe, rate and review our podcast. We read each review and are so thankful for them. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro.