RLP 381: Love County Tax Records

Nicole (0s):
This is Research Like a Pro episode 381: Love County Tax Records. 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. This episode is sponsored by Newspapers.com.

Nicole (44s):
Hello everybody. Welcome to Research Like a Pro.

Diana (47s):
Hi Nicole. How’s everything going today?

Nicole (50s):
It’s going well and I’ve been having fun doing some locality research using ChatGPT and the deep research and I recently did two research guides for counties in Arkansas that were burned, that you’ve researched in before: Izard County, Fulton County. And my goal is just to see if I can find any more records on Sally Keaton and her children when they lived there. And my last project focused on Mississippi. So this project is just kind of focusing on Arkansas and I gave it the prompt to, you know, look at all these categories for records and find collections online and then also consider offline collections and where those might be found.

Nicole (1m 30s):
So my original cursory glance through the the guides, they seemed pretty good, but now I’m gonna actually dive into using them and comparing them with your Izard County guide and see if they’re useful or not.

Diana (1m 42s):
That will be so interesting. I’m really curious about that because I did do my guide, you know, on my own and I’ve researched a lot in that area. What, what are the years that you’ll be researching Sally?

Nicole (1m 53s):
They were in, she was in Fulton County in 1860 and then Izard County in 1870 and then she’s buried in Izard County. And my I’d like to know when she died, her headstone was placed in the 1910s by descendants and the headstone says after 1880 for her death. But I have not found her on the 1880 census. So I think it might’ve been a little before that.

Diana (2m 15s):
So there is some record loss, but maybe that’s late enough that you’ll have records, which will be exciting.

Nicole (2m 22s):
Yeah, we’ll see. All of her children were married by then, so I’m not sure exactly what could be found. Some of the things I’ve already found are like federal level military records for that time period and I don’t know if anyone will be taxed. She had a couple sons there, so maybe we’ll see.

Diana (2m 39s):
Yeah, sounds good. That’s great.

Nicole (2m 41s):
What about you?

Diana (2m 43s):
Well I am wrapping up my research on the Dillards of Cassia County, Georgia and went up to the FamilySearch library yesterday to look at some county histories that were not online and just to see if I could glean a little bit more information about the area and found a really nice one that was written by a gentleman who used it for his thesis and he had written it all about the the original town Cassville. So I’m excited to dive into that and just learn more about the context. What I found are the two groups of people, you know, I had two candidates for Cynthia Dillard Royston’s father and I’m finding that both of those people, I’ve identified both of those people, and their families are known.

Diana (3m 26s):
One is from South Carolina, the woman and the man is from Tennessee and they both have records that seem to show no hint of Cynthia. And she always said she was born in Georgia. So when I discovered that, you know, they were from Tennessee and South Carolina, two separate families, that made me really question whether they could have a connection. So my next phase of this will be looking at all of the Georgian men who, maybe women too, who got land lots in that land lottery of 1832 in that area because I do have a good solid list of Dillards and maybe they didn’t appear in a census, they are just there for that land lottery.

Diana (4m 9s):
Maybe she came up with her family. So anyway, I have another group to research in the future, even though this one is not panning out like I had maybe hoped. But that happens doesn’t it?

Nicole (4m 20s):
Yeah, that does happen and it’s good to rule it out and see what you know, what you can do with it and then help you move on to the next avenue.

Diana (4m 29s):
Yeah, it is. It’s really good to rule things out. You may be disappointed that it’s not what you thought but you can just look at them and say, Nope, not related. At least at this current point, you know, maybe way back in Virginia they would be the same branch of the family, but not recently related.

Nicole (4m 46s):
Yeah. Well we’ll see what happens.

Diana (4m 50s):
Ongoing search, right?

Nicole (4m 51s):
Ongoing search. Our next Research Like a Pro webinar is coming up. I’m excited for Melanie to share this. She’s a such an experienced researcher on our team and qualified genealogist, which is a UK accreditation. She has a master’s degree. She is going to be teaching about a case that she worked on that’s Irish and DNA. And so all of our listeners out there who are interested in using DNA to help overcome Irish brick walls will want to watch this one. But this will be on October 21st at 11:00 AM Mountain time. And if you haven’t registered yet for our Research Like a Pro webinar series, you can do so at any time this year and you’ll have access to all the previous webinars for the year and the upcoming ones.

Nicole (5m 32s):
So the description of this is that Ellen Scott, an orphan Irish-American in 1860 had conflicting historical records about her origins and parents, Patrick Scott and Margaret Cox. Using autosomal DNA analysis, pedigree triangulation and gephi network graphs with Ancestry DNA data researchers identified her genetic networks and traced her maternal and paternal lines to specific US and Irish localities revealing candidates for both parents despite the lack of official records. So we’re looking forward to that and it will be great. The next study group is going to be our DNA study group, Research Like a Pro with DNA, and that will begin February of 2026.

Nicole (6m 13s):
So if you are interested, put it on your calendar and you can find the dates on our website and registration will begin in December. And if you’d like to be a peer group leader, just email us or apply on our website and make sure you are signed up for our weekly Monday newsletter so you can get notifications of all our new content. Upcoming conferences include the Texas State Genealogical Society Conference November 7th through 8th. And I’ll be teaching two classes in the prerecorded classes, the first on cotton farming using using tax records to track economic status. And then my other lecture is AI and genealogy and then Diana’s lectures are about crafting focused narratives and uncovering female ancestry through cluster research and DNA.

Diana (6m 59s):
All right, well let’s dive into our topic, which is all about the Love county courthouse and tax records. So when Nicole was at Love County and doing some onsite research, we talked in our last episode all about the adventure of working in the deeds, which was so fun and interesting. And today we’re going to talk all about the tax records. And the tax records are a lot different than working in the nice research room within the courthouse. The tax records are actually in the old jail outback and I was just there a few weeks ago and had to do a little bit more tax research for Nicole for our family and so experienced the old jail myself.

Diana (7m 42s):
And so yes it is, it is an experience for sure. We had to be escorted in by one of the workers who had the key because everything was locked up. And I made sure I asked her, you’re going to keep everything unlocked, right? I didn’t wanna be stuck in that old jail ’cause it was kind of warm and it’s kind of dirty with all the bugs on the floor, but it was an adventure and the records are great. They’re right there for you to go find.

Nicole (8m 7s):
Yeah and when you went it was even warmer, I think when I was there in May, it was just pleasant it, it didn’t seem hot at all, but when you were there it was August or September and it was a lot hotter and so with not a lot of air conditioning that was probably hot.

Diana (8m 22s):
Yeah. Luckily we went first thing in the morning, which I’m really grateful for because it was getting warmer, but at one point I thought, okay, I just gotta get outta here and get some fresh air.

Nicole (8m 32s):
Yes.

Diana (8m 33s):
So it was funny.

Nicole (8m 34s):
Yeah. What was interesting when you said that, I was thinking about how the Treasurer’s Office, the ladies in there said that the records had been stored somewhere else previously, but they moved them to the old jail because it was more climate controlled. So even though it didn’t have a lot of air conditioning, it must have some or maybe this thick cinder block walls keep out the elements better than wherever they were before.

Diana (9m 1s):
Well that could be and yeah, that’s interesting because we didn’t have any air conditioning at the time, but maybe they have heat or something, maybe it doesn’t get as cold. I don’t know. That’s an interesting thing to think about.

Nicole (9m 15s):
Yeah, so this Love County research was part of my kinship determination project or KDP for the Board for Certification of Genealogists, BCG certification. And while my KDP focused on proving kinship between three generations of the Harris family, I also hoped to add valuable economic context by tracking their tax records over the years. And this was really important for understanding Dock Harris’s life story, the middle generation and Dock lived through the Great Depression and after leaving Love County in the twenties, he settled in the heart of the dustbowl region before eventually migrating to California.

Nicole (9m 58s):
So I wanted to fully understand what happened economically throughout his life. And these Love County tax records represented a crucial early chapter in that larger economic story. The tax assessments would help me understand his financial starting point before the economic upheavals that would define much of his adult life. So I just wanted to start out with all the information I could. And he grew up in Love County and that’s where he started being taxed.

Diana (10m 28s):
All right, well you had a clue, which was great, that would help your search. And that was the newspaper clipping from Friday May 28th, 1920. This was the edition of the Marietta Monitor and it showed personal property tax valuations by township, which is awesome. And the list revealed that Arza Harris, and this was John C Harris’s widow, and she was assessed $75 in personal property in Bernie Township. And Dock Harris had $480 in personal property in Washington Township. And then the next page of the newspaper also showed Hickory Township and Marietta Town as well.

Diana (11m 9s):
So that’s interesting that that was made public knowledge how much personal property apparently people had and were being taxed on. And so that newspaper did give you a lot of clues and it would’ve been helpful if you’d analyzed this more thoroughly before your trip. But you know, you learned it on the fly. So the list let you know that Love County was divided into those townships, Bernie, Washington, Hickory and Marietta, which was just the town. And so it was organized differently than what you’d done before, which was the numerical township range system. So you went from doing that with the land and now you had to kind of shift your, your mindset to go to townships.

Diana (11m 55s):
But the 1920 assessments did confirm that both Arza and Dock were still in Love County in 1920 and that also aligned with the federal census taken that year. So good job correlating all of that. And then the context of the amount was interesting because there’s a big difference between Arza’s $75 assessment and Dock’s $480. So different economic circumstances and Dock at this time appeared to be more prosperous and then they were assessed in different townships, Bernie versus Washington. So they had moved into different areas of the county. So Arza was Dock’s stepmother, you know, and he’s married by then so it makes sense that he’s moved out on his own.

Diana (12m 38s):
So one of the gaps in the timeline though that we had for Dock was knowing when he left Love County because he’s there in 1920, but in 1930 he’s in Los Anima County, Colorado. And then the newspaper evidence suggests he spent some time in Lubbock County, Texas during the 1920s because there’s a 1922 article that mentions his son Bert Harris there. And in 1925 he served as the informant on his sister Devia Dove Harris’ death certificate also in Lubbock County. So you know, really knowing a little bit more about when he left Love County would’ve helped focus the tax research. But you know, as so often happens, it’s actually the tax records that eventually help, you know, when they left an area combined with the newspapers.

Diana (13m 25s):
So you had so much good evidence. I love it.

Nicole (13m 28s):
Yeah, I did. It was neat to have those newspaper articles and it’s always exciting to research people who lived in the early 1900s because there are often more mentions of your ancestors in the newspapers and I never knew that I would be able to find them in the newspapers in this timeframe. But it was so exciting to do that and to find so many things and especially in, well in both counties in Love County and in Lubbock County, Texas, there were plenty of articles. It was just a matter of searching and mining the newspapers really carefully and searching for every mention of the name Harris, which is common. But then I found so many more times where the family was mentioned just under Uncle Harris or just some kind of like calling the family that you didn’t know.

Nicole (14m 15s):
I didn’t know that John C. Harris was ever known by Johnny Harris and that was fun. So anyway, the newspaper helped prepare for this a little bit. Well, in the morning I had been in the county clerk’s office looking at deeds and after lunch I returned to the courthouse and asked the treasurer about the tax records. And I was kind of tentative, nervously opening the door to the treasurer’s office, but they were all really friendly and eager to help. And I learned that the historical textbooks were stored in the old jail building behind the courthouse. And the deputy treasurer walked me over to what had once been the county jail and in the last 10 or 15 years had been converted into storage space for various county records.

Nicole (14m 57s):
And it seemed to me as we walked by some of the other cells that there were other county records and they’re probably from the court clerk and the deed office. Well, as we entered the old jail, I was really struck by the atmosphere. The building had really retained its institutional feeling with the cinder block walls painted white and the unmistakable sense that the space had once housed prisoners. And the treasurer unlocked the outer door with a key and then led me into the jail cells area, big hall. And so we eventually reached the storage room that was for the treasurers in that cell and she unlocked the door and I was just astounded to see so many old volumes lining the shelves, holding tax record volumes, spanning decades of Love county history.

Nicole (15m 41s):
And the treasurer turned to leave and I made sure she would leave the door unlocked and it was just kind of dark in there and I knew I’d be alone in there without a key. So I just felt a little nervous, like you said. But once I was alone, I took a moment to take in my surroundings and I just love the look of the old volumes. They’re so beautiful with the kind of dark gem colors and they’re a little bit dusty, but they were pretty.

Diana (16m 7s):
Well, let’s have a word from our Sponsor. Ever wondered what life was really like for your ancestors? With Newspapers.com you can explore the world they lived in through their eyes, in their time. Search over a billion newspaper pages dating from 1690 to 2025 and uncover the stories that shaped your family’s past from birth and wedding announcements to obituaries and community news. These pages hold the milestones and everyday moments that connect you to your roots, but it’s more than names and dates, it’s about standing in their shoes. Picture reading the local paper your great-grandmother once held or stumbling on a forgotten article about your grandfather’s first business. These aren’t just clippings, they’re pieces of your family story.

Diana (16m 49s):
Newspapers.com turns curiosity into connection. Start your journey today at Newspapers.com because sometimes the past isn’t just history, it’s a story waiting to be discovered. Come make infinite discoveries today on Newspapers.com. Use promo code FamilyLocket for a 20% discount on your subscription. Well back to the old jail. And one of the challenges that you had warned me about was the lack of workspace. So the County Clerk’s office had those nice angled reading stands and the old jail didn’t have anything. And so it was kind of cramped quarters, no table, no chairs. So you warned me.

Diana (17m 29s):
And so I did the same thing you did. Took one of the large plastic storage bins that just had a few things in it, carefully took those out and then flipped it upside down and then that became the makeshift tables ’cause you could kneel on the concrete floor and it’s not super comfortable, but at least it had got the books up off the floor and had a place where you could open them up and then you could photograph them. And I think it’s interesting that you had worn sandals and then that was kind of hard on your feet when you were kneeling down and you wish you’d had closed toe shoes. So I took your advice and did do that. And you also had a problem because your phone battery was already partially drained from doing the deed work all morning, but you had a phone charger in your backpack and you found an outlet.

Diana (18m 18s):
But sadly the charger didn’t seem to work and the outlet maybe wasn’t functioning, maybe they just didn’t have electricity in that building going through ’cause I didn’t need any lights and you didn’t need any lights it was daytime. So then you had to put your phone on battery saver mode and trying to keep the screen up. So that was kind of a distraction I’m sure worrying about your phone because it would be sad not to be able to get the photographs. And back in the day, you know, if you had something like that, you just relied on your pen and paper, taking down notes, copious notes, which would really take a lot more time.

Nicole (18m 50s):
Yes, I was bent on taking pictures of everything, so I just put it on battery saver and then I just, something I learned, to never go on a research trip without an extra battery. So I’ve since bought a really good extra battery that could charge my phone up all the way really quickly and a cord so that I can, it’s just like the shape of my phone’s, like another phone kind of thing. But it’s just a battery and you just plug into it. It’s really nice. And I’ve used it several times on family outings, but not yet on a research trip. Okay. So when I started looking at the volumes on the shelves, I noticed that there were multiple volumes per year for the tax rolls.

Nicole (19m 32s):
And there were actually other volumes there too besides just tax rolls. But I was focused on the tax books they had the year on the spine. It made sense given the newspaper list that I’d seen, but I hadn’t really fully understood the system of separating the tax list by townships before I encountered it. So there were those separate textbooks based on township and then the preservation issues. So some of the volumes were wrapped in brown paper for protection, which meant I had to unwrap and rewrap them carefully, which I always felt bad, but it was also kind of like opening up a present, like what’s gonna be inside? It’s so exciting.

Nicole (20m 13s):
So others of the volumes had dead cricket scattered on the top of the books and just dust that it accumulated. One thing that was different is when I started perusing the volumes, the land tax records were organized by township in range, just like the deeds. But the personal property and poll tax records were arranged alphabetically by surname. And so this meant I had to kind of like remember the different organizational methods within the same research session. I wasn’t sure if all the years were represented or not. It seemed like they were all on different shelves and they weren’t in order. But I’ve since noticed, you know, I took pictures of all the shelves and so I went through that and looked for every year.

Nicole (20m 58s):
And I think every year actually was represented. So at the time I wasn’t sure and probably would’ve been good to just try to find all the volumes first. I was kind of just like rushing the whole time like, okay, what do I wanna do? Well here’s 1908, just do this one. And so, and I didn’t get to do every single volume, so there were just a lot of years to cover.

Diana (21m 23s):
Well, and it was tricky because some of the volumes on the outside would say, say like 1920, but then when you open it up on the inside, it was also like 1920, 1921, 1922, you know, they kind of rolled them together, at least the ones that I was working in. So they had done a good job of trying to identify on the outside writing on the paper, the years. But I still found that sometimes they combined years. And so that made it a little tricky as well.

Nicole (21m 51s):
Oh, interesting. Yeah, the earlier ones that I was looking at didn’t have that as much. There was one volume that was like a Ferret tax volume that was combined, but most of them were, there would be like two for 1915 and one would be Washington and Marietta and the other one would be Bernie and Hickory.

Diana (22m 12s):
Yeah, well it would have been nice if they were just lined up on the shelf perfectly.

Nicole (22m 17s):
I wish I could go back and just organize it.

Diana (22m 20s):
Reorganize it. But they’re so heavy, they are so heavy. So that would be a job to reorganize it. Yeah, and I agree with you. You feel bad taking the paper off, but there’s no other way to look at the books and then try to put that paper back on a little bit. So it’s a challenge.

Nicole (22m 38s):
Yeah.

Diana (22m 39s):
So you started working through the tax volumes, even though this was kind of challenging here and you wanted to confirm the newspaper preparation. So there was a mystery. There was, you know, the different townships and so you’d searched Marietta and Washington for volume 1920 expecting to find DH Harris with his $480 personal property assessment that was shown in the newspaper, but he wasn’t there. And you did find RL Harris who was listed right next to DH Harris in the newspaper valuation, but no Dock Harris. So maybe never actually paid his taxes that year despite his personal property being officially valued and published.

Diana (23m 20s):
So working backward, 1916 you found some success. So in 1916 in that volume, you thought it should include both Dock and his father, John C. Harris, because John had died in 1918 and in the Bernie and Hickory Township tax roll on page 21, there they were Jo… JC Harris and DH Harris of Pike listed together along with Lee Harris of Leon, who was a stepbrother. So that’s really exciting when you finally see their name on the paper.

Nicole (23m 49s):
Yes, it was exciting. And Pike was one of the locations that I knew they lived in based on all the other research and records that I had found. So seeing the initials might’ve been, oh no, like could these be other people? But having them next to each other, JC Harris and his son DH Harris, it didn’t say son, but just knowing I know that they’re father son and then seeing them next to each other and having them both be listed as being of Pike, it was so helpful. So it, it listed their residence and so this was the personal property tax list and so it was alphabetized and it didn’t list their land, it just listed the place they lived, like the town and then like how much they paid in taxes.

Nicole (24m 40s):
So like they had to pay for the school district and various different things that were listed. So that was great. And it was really cool to see Lee Harris, he was a stepson of JC Harris who just, we didn’t know that much about and it was neat to see him there on the tax records. Well, after having that successful moment, I decided to try to be more thorough and just kind of start at the beginning. So the earliest records in Love County were from 1908, right after the state of Oklahoma was created from Indian Territory and Chickasaw Nation is where Love County was created from.

Nicole (25m 23s):
And so I found the oldest tax roll and unlike the later years, this roll was not divided into multiple volumes by township. It was just one comprehensive volume covering all of Love County. And then within the volume there were sections for each township. In the Bernie Township personal property section, it was alphabetized, I found DH Harris of Pike on page 53. And then three pages later on page 56, I discovered JC Harris of Marietta. Interestingly, he was in the Bernie Township section, but it said he was of Marietta, and that was interesting.

Nicole (26m 4s):
And then SD Harris of Jimtown, and I think that SD Harris is John’s brother, Sam David Harris. So that was great to add another family connection. Then I just tried to keep tracking the family through the years. Well actually the next thing I wanted to do was find out when Dock left. So I decided to go to the end of the timeframe, which was the 1920s. And so in 1919 in the Bernie and Hickory Township’s roll, I found Mrs. Arza Harris of Leon, John’s widow, on page 20 and DH Harris of Burneyville on page 24.

Nicole (26m 46s):
And this showed both John’s widow and son were still in the county a year after John’s death, which was in 1918 as I had expected ’cause they were there in the 1920 census. Then I went to the 1921 book and I thought maybe I would see if Dock was still there or if he was gone. I searched the Marietta and Washington roll but couldn’t find either Arza or Dock. I now realize that Arza would not be in that township, but rather the Bernie Township because she lived in Leon. But at the time I didn’t fully understand the volumes being in those two townships and that I needed to find both of them ’cause they weren’t together. However, Dock Harris lived in Washington Township during the 1920 census.

Nicole (27m 29s):
So his absence from the roll suggested that he had moved in 1920 right after the census, or that he could have been assessed in a different township that year. And then in 1922 in the Bernie and Hickory townships, I found Lee Harris and TJ Harris, both stepbrothers of Dock. So the extended family remained in Love County even as Dock Harris had moved away.

Diana (27m 54s):
Well, in the 1920 second volume of the tax roll, you found some good information. And this is such a good lesson that if you can’t find your person, look around. Maybe they’re, you know, maybe there’s something else, some more information. So in this one, you had not found Dock on the personal property list, which also had JD Harris, Lee Harris, SD Harris, TJ Harris, all those Harrises. They were all in Leon, you found Arza. And in the land tax section of Bernie, she was paying taxes on property described as eight and a third acres in Northeast, Northeast, Northwest, section eight Township seven s South range, one West School District 10.

Diana (28m 40s):
And this was valued at $285 and she’d paid her taxes on December 14th, 1920. So this was probably the same 8.75 acre property, plus 1.25 acres for Pike that John C Harris had purchased from E.L. Carlile in 1916. And you had found that in the deed records that morning. So that’s fun that you were looking at the deeds and then the tax records to see them paying taxes on that same land. And you know, just tracking these people. It’s just fun, isn’t it, to just find all these little details about their lives.

Nicole (29m 15s):
Right. It was, and by this point I was finally starting to put together that there were two volumes for every year. And so it was good that I found both of the 1920 volumes so I could be sure that Dock wasn’t there in either of the two volumes. He wasn’t anywhere in the county that year, which was so mystifying that he had been in the newspaper that year. But I think he just, I think that the newspaper was just giving the valuation and then he moved away and didn’t pay his taxes because he didn’t live there anymore. So I’m not sure how that works as far as the law if someone moves away, like if they’re still liable to pay or, or what.

Nicole (29m 55s):
But he must not have paid and they must not have written it down in the tax volume at all because sometimes people were listed in the tax volume, but then they were listed as not paying and they were listed as delinquent. And so, but it was interesting that he wasn’t there at all.

Diana (30m 14s):
Yeah, that is, it would be really good to know that the specific steps, you know, like first you are appraised or they ask you about how much you’re supposed to pay, who decided how much you had to pay, you know, was there an appraiser that went out and said this is how much you have to pay for taxes and then it’s put in the newspaper and then you actually pay. It’d be really great to research that and learn that real procedure that they had to go through. That would be helpful, wouldn’t it?

Nicole (30m 40s):
Yeah, when I researched that for a North Carolina project, they asked the people to come and report how much their property was worth. So it was kind of self-reporting, which is probably how they did it here too. And I think that’s how we do it today. But then you have to worry about being audited if you don’t.

Diana (30m 60s):
Yeah. And maybe they publish it in the newspaper so that people could come in and say, no, he has more property than that. You know, if you’re self-reporting, it’s a way to make it more transparent because your neighbors know how much you have. You know, it’s a small area, everybody knows everybody else.

Nicole (31m 16s):
Maybe. Well I know they were trying in the early part of the county too, they would send a person out, the tax ferret, and they had the tax ferret roll where they had found additional properties that people needed to be assessed for, you know?

Diana (31m 29s):
Oh, that’s a great term. That is so funny.

Nicole (31m 33s):
Yeah, the tax ferret.

Diana (31m 35s):
Oh my gosh, I love it.

Nicole (31m 37s):
I had no idea what that book was for, but I did get it out and look through it and figured it out later.

Diana (31m 44s):
Hmm hmm. Interesting.

Nicole (31m 44s):
And John C Harris was ferreted out in that volume.

Diana (31m 49s):
Really? Oh gosh, that’s funny. Oh, I guess people don’t change. Nobody wants to pay taxes or more than you have to.

Nicole (31m 56s):
Well, I think beginning of the county, they were trying to really get people to pay and they had just been living in a territory that was kind of like, you know, a little more loosey-goosey, a little somewhat lawless in some ways, at least from the historical context research that I did. They were the federal agencies and courts and things were trying to bring some order into the territory. So I don’t think people were used to paying many taxes and so they had to really crack down on that in the first few years of the statehood.

Diana (32m 31s):
Yeah, that makes sense. Because under Indian Territory they couldn’t own land, they just leased land and they wouldn’t be paying taxes on that. So this was a new system.

Nicole (32m 41s):
Right.

Diana (32m 41s):
So yeah, under, under the tribal leadership, you know, if they’re in Chickasaw Nation, I don’t know if the tribes, you know, were collecting taxes from any of the white settlers. Interesting.

Nicole (32m 53s):
There were certain taxes for like particular licenses that people wanted to do or like whatever their, you know, if they wanted to start a certain establishment and there were all kinds of different licenses they did in those early records when I looked into the the Chickasaw Nation records and stuff. But the federal level, I don’t think they had like a federal level tax at that time, but I guess that’s something I should look into to find out. Yeah, if they had to like taxation in the territory.

Diana (33m 23s):
Yeah, that would be interesting. Well, we haven’t found any records showing that, you know, and what we’ve looked at. So that would be a good thing to discover.

Nicole (33m 33s):
Yeah, well as I was looking through all the volumes there, I began to understand the systematic organization. The 1920 volumes had helpful little section tabs, which was fun, the other ones didn’t, but volume two included Bernie-Lands tab, then a tab for Leon-Lots and Burneyville-Lands, and similar geographic divisions. So when it says lots, I now understand that that means the town lots. So instead of township and range land descriptions, it has like lot one of block 63 because they created a town and divided the land into lots.

Nicole (34m 13s):
And then when it says lands, then that’s kind of what you would normally expect for the land description to be, you know, township seven South one West Section 26, the northeast quarter. So that was the lands. So when it said Burneyville lands, I know it was that. So that was helpful to see those tabs in the 1920 volume. And then the other 1920 volume covering different areas had tabs for Marietta City. So in Marietta City they had the town lots, and then Washington-Lands, which was the overarching township that Marietta city was in, but if you were outside of the city limits, then you would have a land description that was under the Washington lands, and then Thackerville-Lots, so town lots within the town of Thackerville.

Nicole (35m 2s):
So understanding all that helped me navigate more efficiently as I continued my research.

Diana (35m 7s):
Well that’s great. You just had to get the lay of the land, understand the records. Just like we do with digital records, We have to understand what we’re looking at. So physical records, no different. So well as your research in the old jail wound down, you took photographs of all the bookshelves and you know, you can go look at the blog post Nicole wrote about this and see the pictures. It’s fun to see all the different volumes and how they’re arranged on the shelves in the old jail. So you were coming back one more day and so you wanna be able to look at your pictures and make sure you had everything that you wanted. So I think that’s such a great tip to really photograph all the books, just to get an inventory of what’s there.

Diana (35m 51s):
And you know, the pictures helped you because when you were giving me a research plan, going back to the tax, do some tax research on things you hadn’t been able to look at, you could look and see exactly what was there and what I needed to look at. So that’s very helpful.

Nicole (36m 8s):
Yeah, I just wanted to look and see like, okay, which volumes are the most crucial ones to look at in my next day? ’cause I kind of had a feeling that I wouldn’t have time to look at every single one. And so although that would be my preference, I knew I needed to also go to the Historical Society Museum and I really wanted to go there, so I needed to prioritize that. So I wanted to just make a list of which volumes were a priority and put ’em in order just like I would do with any research plan that I was making at home on my computer.

Diana (36m 43s):
Yeah, that’s great.

Nicole (36m 45s):
Well, thanks everyone for listening today. I hope you got some great ideas for when you go to research in old tax volumes at the courthouse or in an archive somewhere. It was a joy and a delight and I hope you get the chance to do something similar someday soon. Thanks for listening everyone. Bye

Diana (37m 4s):
Bye-bye.

Nicole (37m 4s):
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.