RLP 67: Tax Records Part 3 – How to Find Tax Records

Nicole (0s):
This is Research Like a Pro episode 67 Tax Records part three: How to Find 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 creators of the Amazon bestselling book, Research Like a Pro a Genealogists Guide. I’m Nicole co-host of the podcast join Diana and me as we discuss how to stay organized, make progress in our research and solve difficult cases.

Nicole (41s):
Let’s go. Hi everyone, welcome to the show today. I’m Nicole Dyer co-host of The Research Like a Pro Genealogy Podcast. I’m here with accredited genealogist, Diana Elder. Hi, Diana, what have you been working on lately?

Diana (59s):
Hi Nicole. I’ve been working on DNA projects and trying to figure out a really great method on doing that. So I’m having fun with that and learning so much, and I feel like everything is starting to gel. So I don’t know about you, how are you feeling about how to use DNA in your research?

Nicole (1m 18s):
Well, I’m realizing that I need to keep track of all the old messages I sent to matches on Ancestry and combine that with the new messages I’m sending. And I’ve noticed that some matches also show up on several different websites. So I had one match on Ancestry that I’d already figured out, but then I messaged him on My Heritage because his tree wasn’t there like, oh, how are related? And so, yeah, putting it all into one correspondence log has been very helpful.

Diana (1m 44s):
I agree. And I’m feeling like the correspondent log is becoming my research log for DNA. And I love my research log so much. And I don’t feel like I’m really doing real research and time filling it out. And I’m starting to feel that same way about my correspondence log now.

Nicole (1m 58s):
Yes, you just feel like you have so much more control about what you’re doing, because you’re not going to repeat it. You know, you’re not going to make that mistake. Like I did contacting the same person in two different companies.

Diana (2m 9s):
Yes. Well, I even contacted the same person in the same company and said, how are we related? And she’s like, ah, this is your cousin Theresa. I’m like, oh duh, I was so embarrassed. But you know, that happens when they use pseudonyms and if you don’t write a note, you know. So I am learning to be so much better. And I’m excited about that. Well, let’s get to our listener spotlight. This is by Sumac40 and the title is, “so much wonderful information”, I’m not sure how I stumbled upon this podcast, but it is one of my favorites, Diana and Nicole present lots of information and give many options to help you in your genealogy research. I’ve gone back to the beginning episodes and have been listening to them. As I read the book, I am new to researching genealogy and I feel this podcast will give me a great foundation for future research.

Diana (2m 55s):
I especially enjoy the ways they’ve use technology, or not, in their research methods.” I like that, that little idea of how maybe we haven’t used some technology. I think that it’s so important that every single genealogist learns the right balance between technology and pen and paper. So what are we working on today? What are we talking about today?

Nicole (3m 15s):
Well, if you’ve been listening to the last two episodes about Tax Records, you’re probably wondering, well, how do I find a tax record? Cause they sound really great, but where do I find them? That’s today’s subject. So let’s talk about How to Find Tax Records. It’s important to understand that Tax Records were created by governments as they assessed the people property and the land within their jurisdiction. So they’re usually held by that government at various levels, maybe the county government, or the state or the federal government in other countries beyond the US if you’re looking for Tax Records, just check each jurisdiction level to find out which level of government usually levied and collected taxes.

Diana (3m 53s):
Right. So a really good place to start is the FamilySearch Wiki. And I would recommend that you look up the country, state, county, or town that you’re researching in and the Wiki will tell you where the Tax Records are. In the very first Tax Records episode I talked all about the Tax Records and Somerset county, Maryland, and how I found those on the Maryland state archives website. Well, I found those because it was listed in the FamilySearch Wiki and there were links straight to it. And I maybe would have figured that out for myself along the way, but why not start with the Wiki, which already has the best ideas for where to find your records.

Diana (4m 34s):
You can also use the FamilySearch catalog. I go to that all the time and look for Tax Records. Nicole, how have you found Tax Records?

Nicole (4m 42s):
I do both the FamilySearch Wiki, and then the catalog. Let’s talk about using the catalog. A lot of people don’t know really what that is. So FamilySearch is a huge repository for records, and they have sent people out all over the world to microfilm records from different archives and county governments and church records, and then bring them back to the Granite Mountain vault in Utah. And a lot of the records have been indexed through volunteers, but tons more of those records are not indexed, but in the last 10 years, they’ve made a huge effort to digitize all of the microfilms and put them online. So Tax Records typically fall into this category of microfilms that have been digitized and not indexed.

Nicole (5m 29s):
So the way that you find those records is not by going to FamilySearch and typing your person’s name in the search box, you have to go to the FamilySearch libraries catalog, and then you go to the place and then you look for the subject taxation. And under that places, subject of taxation, you may see various microfilm rolls that have been digitized. And that’s how I find Tax Records now. And it’s usually one of the best ways to do it. So let’s do an example. So I wanted to find some Tax Records for my great-great-great-grandparent in Anderson county, South Carolina. So going to the FamilySearch catalog and typing in Anderson county, South Carolina, I was taken to the page that had all the records that were digitized for that county and books.

Nicole (6m 13s):
So you’ll have a mix of both, but you’ll find that most of the microfilms are digitized now. And sometimes you have to go to the FamilySearch centers in order to view digitized microfilms because of the permissions, but I’ve found that a lot of the Tax Records, the permissions were given to be able to view from home. And one that I found that I wanted to use was the Anderson district tax returns from 1835 to 61, because that was the timeframe for my ancestors who lived there. So opening that up, I saw that it was a publication by the South Carolina department of archives and history. And I saw that the microfilm had been digitized. And the way you can see that as that next to the microfilm notes, there will be a camera icon. And when you click on that camera icon, it lets you browse through the role of microfilm images online.

Nicole (6m 57s):
So when you do that, it might seem overwhelming to see hundreds of images and how do you know which one you want while you can kind of figure out what Tax Records, how they’re organized, because they’re usually grouped by year, like we’ve talked about. So I was able to find the grouping for 1843. And before I started looking from page to page, I kind of counted and saw that there were 24 images for that year. And the first image was titled general taxes collected in the district of Anderson for the year, 1843 by David Simmons. And then I started paging through and I saw that each page included the surnames beginning with A and then B. And I noticed that the entire list was organized alphabetically, not by district or company like many Tax Records are.

Nicole (7m 42s):
So this made me think it must’ve been a copy made from the original returns because typically you don’t make everybody line up in alphabetical order while you write down their tax information, right?

Diana (7m 54s):
You’re right.

Nicole (7m 56s):
So sure enough, one of the first images in the collection had a note, which said the Tax Records here in were recorded by the state comptroller general from the returns, which he received from the district and parish tax collectors. So you can kind of imagine the tax process. The tax collectors, going out to each district, writing down everything, and then sending it back to the state. And then the state comptroller general would compile this alphabetical list. So then the comptroller general forwarded the records to the clerks of the court in the various parishes in order that the taxpayers might be able to compare the receipts issued to them with the amounts recorded on these lists. So there was a method for how this all worked out, and it’s helpful to understand the method so that when you are using the information, found about your subject as evidence, you can make sure that you’re understanding it correctly.

Diana (8m 43s):
Right. And I just want to make a note here that this is an excellent substitution for a burned county, where they have lost a ton of records. Because these were sent to the state, if the county courthouse burned, they’re going to be on the state level and they will still be in existence. So Tax Records really can help in so many ways. And also in this collection, you couldn’t use the FAN club because you had no idea who was a neighbor, right? Because they were all alphabetized from all those various lists.

Nicole (9m 13s):
Right. So it didn’t show me the district groupings, which is disappointing, but there were still some things I could gain. I knew that they lived in the county and this year, and I also saw some numbers after their names. So the people that I found were William Keeton and Archibald Keaton, and I was looking for Lucinda Keaton’s parents. So I thought maybe William Keeton or Archibald could have been her father. So that’s why I was looking at this tax list, just trying to find out who they were and what I could learn about them. So when I saw their names and the numbers next to them, I had no idea what they meant, because it didn’t have column headers. It was just a name. And then the number nine, and then the number 17 next to William, and then Archibald and the number five and the number 39.

Nicole (9m 59s):
So I was like, well, I don’t know what that means. Is this like the number of dollars and cents? Is this the number of shillings and Pence? Is it the total tax, the property tax? What is it? So I haven’t mentioned this book yet, but you may want to get this book, it’s called the Genealogist’s Guide to Researching Tax Records by Carol Cook Darrow, a certified genealogist and Susan Winchester, who is a PhD and a CPA. So they have a lot of good experience between them, but they say that it’s imperative that you learn what information was recorded in each column of the tax record. And if the column headings are missing, then you’ll have to go find the explanation elsewhere. So this is usually going to be found in a state guide to Tax Records, even a journal article about Tax Records, maybe in a genealogy society quarterly.

Nicole (10m 46s):
But the place I go to usually is the state tax codes, which are held within the compiled laws for that state. So I used that information to understand why these tax records were recorded by the state comptroller and whatnot. So I went to that same book to find a little bit more about the Tax Records and what they could mean. And I found a digitized version of it at HathiTrust, and I looked in the index, which was in the 10th volume of it, and I found references to all the tax laws over the years. And I learned that there were several types of taxes. There was property, poor tax and road tax, but this tax list only shows the total tax.

Nicole (11m 26s):
So that was the way that the taxpayers could compare the receipts with what the state collected. So it didn’t really break down what the taxes were for like the original tax collector would have shown. So, as I was researching, I found another book that was helpful A Digested Index of the Statute Law of South Carolina, from the Earliest Period to 1836. And I found that at Google books and it showed that the tax accounts began to be kept in dollars and cents in 1795. And that all people who owned a property on the first day of October in any year or selling it after that day paid the taxes. So then I kind of had a timeframe for when people had to own land paid property tax on it. So I started to get a larger understanding of how it all worked.

Nicole (12m 8s):
And so I eventually figured out that those numbers, there were dollars and cents and it was the total tax paid by that person.

Diana (12m 15s):
Well, I think that you have really shown us that you have to dig in to learning about these records, rather than just taking at face value, what you saw. You had to learn exactly what happened with that record and what those numbers were showing. So I think the big takeaway from this whole series on Tax Records is that we have to learn about them. You know, we have to learn about the laws. We have to learn how they were collected, where the collection is, whether it was copied, whether it’s original, so, so many good lessons to be learned from your case studies. Now, one of the things that I wanted to mention is that we also have to be really careful when we’re searching that FamilySearch catalog for different jurisdictions because Tax Records are at different levels.

Diana (12m 57s):
You could find Tax Records in a township or the county or on the state level. So be sure that you’re checking all the jurisdictions in that FamilySearch catalog, and the way you do that is when you go in for like a place, you can use the place search. And first you can just search for your state like South Carolina and look at Tax Records. And then you can go for the county when you’re within the county, it’ll say places within this county. And we’ll give you the smaller townships that are within that county that you could also search for. And the same holds true with your European or other international locations. You could search by the larger jurisdiction and then move down to the smaller ones.

Diana (13m 39s):
Just to make sure that you’ve covered all your bases with those Tax Records.

Nicole (13m 43s):
That’s such a good point. And we can’t forget that the United States Federal Tax Records have some interesting things in them like the US IRS assessment lists during the Civil War. Those started in 1862. So you can find some really interesting things about people who are taxed to gain revenue for the Civil War.

Diana (14m 1s):
And that is why we don’t talk about a lot. And that’s a great list.

Nicole (14m 5s):
Those images are available online at FamilySearch, if you’re interested and we’ll put a link to that in the show notes. In fact, this whole episode is coming from my blog post called, Back to the Basics with Tax Records part three. So we’ll link to that. And then within that, you’ll see the link to the IRS lists from 1862 to 1874 that are online.

Diana (14m 24s):
Great. I just wanted to mention also that this is so much more accessible to us now with FamilySearch having digitized so many of these tax lists, because back in the day, you would have to go to the Family History Library, have microfilm sent to your local Family History Center and then scroll through microfilm. But now with them being digitized, you can look at them from home. And there really is no reason why we shouldn’t learn to research with the Tax Lists because they are so much more accessible. Now, online databases have actually indexed some of these records. Ancestry has 150 collections and they are indexed. And so you can search those collections with the keyword tax and you can search just your location, narrowing down and see if you maybe can find some Tax Records on Ancestry and FamilySearch.

Diana (15m 13s):
You can also do a search for just tax in the FamilySearch Historical Record Collections, which has an indexed group of records. And there are 15 there, and maybe will be the lucky person that your ancestors actually indexed in a tax list. I haven’t found any of my people index in Texas. Oh wait. Maybe there was one in a Texas tax list.

Nicole (15m 35s):
Yeah. Well, Ancestry has several tax lists under their collection, Texas county tax rolls, 1846 to 1910. So that’s a good one to look at. And usually what you’ll find on Ancestry are collections that are census substitutes, indexes, which are a lot of tax rolls and different types of records that help for when censuses are missing.

Diana (15m 55s):
That’s a good point.

Nicole (15m 56s):
Like in Virginia, they have a lot of Tax Records on Ancestry for Virginia in their census substitute collection.

Diana (16m 3s):
Right.

Nicole (16m 3s):
So let me tell you a story about Tennessee Tax Records on Ancestry. I did that thing that you mentioned about going to Ancestry and going to their card catalog and then searching by the keyword tax. And there were 156 options. So I found that there were like several collections that were for Tennessee. One was just for Wilson county, but one of them was called Tennessee Early Tax List Records 1783 to 1895. And I thought, perfect. This is exactly what I’m looking for. I was trying to find a man named Baldy Dyer. And I went to this collection at Ancestry and typed in Baldy Dyer, and nothing came up and I was like, but I know he lived there, there’s a pension for his children in 1817.

Nicole (16m 44s):
So I was trying to find him before that. So I just typed in Dyer. And then I typed in the place where he lived, which was, I think, Davidson, I’m doing it right now, so I can replicate it. And I saw that there were a bunch of Dyers there, but no one named Baldy. And then I saw Rudy Dyer, and I thought, oh, could that be Baldy because maybe they couldn’t read the record? Well, sure enough. When I looked at the original image on that Ancestry database there, it was impossible to read. I think I showed it to you, but the image copy was terrible. And the handwriting was very tiny, but with large scripty-ness.

Nicole (17m 25s):
So it was just really hard to decipher it without a clear image copy. And of course the column headings were illegeable as well and the name of the district. So I couldn’t really gain anything from this, except for when I looked for that entry, that was indexed as Rudy Dyer I saw that it looked a lot like Baldy. And so I thought I had my answer that that was Baldy, but I wanted to look at a more clear image copy. So I ended up going to the AncSearchin news, which is the Tennessee genealogical society’s newsletter. And they had digitized several of their back copies of the newsletter. And one of them contained a transcription that somebody had made by looking at the originals. And it was much more accurate than the index here on Ancestry.

Nicole (18m 7s):
And they had indexed it as Baldy Dyer.

Diana (18m 11s):
Interesting. Sometimes when they do the image copies, these could be like really, really large books. And the handwriting may have been small, but not as tiny as it appears once it’s been microfilmed or digitized or taken a picture of. So they were probably whoever was doing, was probably looking at originals and they could decipher it, not to mention if they’re local, they would maybe know of Baldy Dyer. Maybe they had seen his name and other records that they were indexing. So something that’s indexed by someone who’s local in a county really working with those records can often be a much better transcription than something that’s indexed by volunteers that don’t know the area.

Nicole (18m 47s):
Well, I think we would fail if we did not recommend that you also search for Tax Records onsite and look for them within various archives and manuscript collections, because they’re not all going to be digitized. And so one way to find those hidden or difficult to find manuscript collections that are not digitized is to use the website ArchiveGrid. And this is a resource that is kind of like a library catalog, but as for all kinds of archives, it’s kind of like WorldCat where it combines the listings for multiple repositories. So you can go zoom into a certain place and see all the archives that are located there. And then you can also just search through the entire database for Tax Records from a certain place.

Nicole (19m 28s):
So I did an example of the Black Lick township, which was in Indiana county, Pennsylvania, and there wasn’t anything in the FamilySearch catalog for Tax Records for that township. But when I typed it into ArchiveGrid, I found a collection called the Huddle Family Papers and going to look at the collection at the Kegley library at the Wytheville community college, it showed that Isaac Huddle was a clerk for the Black Lick township. And so his descendants had kept several of his account books and loose papers relating to the township and they eventually donated to the library. And I saw that in folder 11 through 20, it contained a bunch of tax receipts for the township in 1871 and 1872.

Nicole (20m 9s):
So if that was where your ancestor lived and you were trying to solve a mystery, you could just go to that library or hire a researcher and find out exactly what you need to know from that township tax receipts.

Diana (20m 20s):
Wow, that’s a great example. And also, I just want to mention that sometimes you just email them and it could be that someone there is just sitting, holding down the fort there at the library and they would be happy to go and get you that information. So you never know, you just call, you email, become friends with the librarian there and see if they’ll help you out. I loved how Melissa Barker, who was on our podcasts several episodes ago, talked about that, really making human contact with these repositories, and the people that work in them, because then they can help you so much with your research and need. Sometimes you don’t have to travel there they’ll just help you get the records you need. So thank you for that great example. I think sometimes we forget to go really local and look at those manuscript collections.

Nicole (21m 4s):
Right. Well, I think that let’s just review all the different ways to find them because it’s not that hard. You can do it. So start at the FamilySearch Wiki, and then the FamilySearch catalog. Those are our top two. And then of course, you know, you could start with the online databases too, and see what they have first, since those are indexed, I don’t know which ones would you check first? Would you go to maybe the Wiki first and then the indexed records that are available at Ancestry and FamilySearch?

Diana (21m 30s):
Probably because the Wiki will often link to those. They’ll also link to a collection on Ancestry or FamilySearch, or like I said, the Maryland state archives when they link there, and sometimes the Wiki will link you to these little lesser known collections too, like something on USGenweb, or a society page.

Nicole (21m 46s):
Right. And you can even just put the list of all the different places you might want to check into your research plan into your identified sources. And then once you see what you’ve got, you can make a prioritized strategy. Like we teach in Research Like a Pro so that you can say, okay, first I’m going to search this index. But if I don’t find it there, I’ll go to the catalog record here and go through each image.

Diana (22m 4s):
Right. And I’m really glad you brought up that idea of your research plan. So we’ve talked a lot about Tax Records. So consider putting Tax Records into your research plan. And maybe you just want to experiment a little bit and see what you can find, but then try doing a whole research project. Maybe I’m one of your brick walls and put Tax Records in as something that you want to search, because it really works best when you’re using it for an entire project. And you’re putting it in context with all the other records and the research for your research objective.

Nicole (22m 34s):
Right. And just last of all, Tax Records are not unique to the United States. And although that’s where we typically talk about all of our examples, you can find Tax Records in European countries as well, I’ve looked into that. So make sure that you just check the Wiki and see what’s available. Just now looking at Ancestry’s list of Tax Records I saw an entire collection for Estonia tax records, and those were not indexed, but you can go to Ancestry and browse through by going to the jurisdiction that you want. So just be aware that all governments wanted to get money from their people. And so Tax Records are out there for a lot of other places, too.

Diana (23m 10s):
Yes. This has been so fun talking about Tax Records for the last three episodes. So if anyone missed the first one or two, you’ll want to go back and listen to those and hopefully all of this will give you some great resources to use. So have fun searching in the Tax Records, everyone.

Nicole (23m 25s):
All right, have fun. And we’ll talk to you guys again next week. Bye bye.

Diana (23m 30s):
Bye bye.

Nicole (23m 31s):
Thank you for listening to Research Like a Pro with Diana Elder, accredited genealogy professional and Nicole Dyer. We hope that something you heard today will help you make progress in your own genealogy research. If you like what you heard, please leave us a review on iTunes or Stitcher or visit our website, FamilyLocket.com to contact us. You can find our book Research Like a Pro a Genealogist’s Guide on Amazon.com and other booksellers. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro.