Introduction to the 1765 Personal Property Tax Lists
Personal property tax lists from the colonial period are very valuable records for genealogists, in essence amounting to an annual census of all males sixteen years old or older. The Amelia County Personal Property Tax Lists name ALL free males over twenty-one years of age, not just those who own property.
In addition, many of these tax lists name other males for whom the household head paid the tax. When the other males in the household share the same surname, these males were usually males between 16 and 21 years of age, and a familial relationship is highly likely; occasionally the list actually STATES the familial relationship.
The Amelia County Personal Property Tax Lists also contain numerous examples of one individual paying the tax for other males with different surnames. It appears that these are situations in which the persons for whom the tax was paid were employees, indentured servants, tenants, overseers, slaves, or (for instance, in the case of a minister) a guest of the person who was responsible for paying the tax. These people for whom the tax was paid by another may not actually have shared living quarters; in most situations, they most likely did NOT, and were not related. Thus their relationship was a taxable one, not necessarily physical or familial.[1] Free males are listed by both given name and surname, whereas slaves were listed last, and only by given name.
In colonial Virginia and continuing after the Revolutionary War, these personal property taxes were referred to as “tithes” or “tithables.” Here is what the Library of Virginia website says about this terminology:
The noun "tithable" when it appears in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century records of Virginia refers to a person who paid, or for whom someone else paid, one of the taxes that the General Assembly imposed for the support of the civil government in the colony. The terms "tithe" and "tithable" had ancient roots in English law and referred to the tax of the tenth portion of the livestock and certain other agricultural products for the support of the church. The term "tithable" developed a different and restricted meaning in seventeenth-century Virginia, where it came to apply to persons on whom the colony's tax laws assessed a poll tax or capitation tax, literally a tax on each "head."
By 1658, when the assembly passed a law defining "What Persons are Tithable," a "tithable" was a member of the potentially productive labor force: free Caucasian males age sixteen or older plus "all negroes imported whether male or female, and Indian servants male or female however procured, being sixteen years of age" (Hening, Statutes at Large, 1:454-455).
Subsequent laws made the immigrants' descendants tithable, too. Slaves and servants did not pay their own taxes; their owners or masters were therefore "tithable" for themselves and for the taxes on their servants and slaves.
Lists of tithables for a county or a household, then, do not enumerate anyone under the age of sixteen or any adult white woman unless they were heads of households. Relatively few tithables lists are extant.[2]
Personal Property Tax Records Available for Amelia County
Fortunately, most of the Personal Property Tax Lists for Amelia County are available from 1736 to at least 1853.
However, with a few notable exceptions (see below), these Personal Property Tax Lists have not been published or even indexed, and they remain unavailable to most genealogists and other researchers. Microfilms of these important records are available at the Virginia State Library and from the main LDS Library in Salt Lake City, but are not available on-line or in local or public libraries.
Below is a summary of the Personal Property Tax Lists that are available for 1736-1853, and which Lists have been indexed, published, or both:
| Year | Where Available |
|---|---|
| 1736-1764[3] | INDEXED in Amelia Co., VA Tax Lists, 1736-1764: An Every-Name Index, TLC Genealogy, 1993 (now out of print, but available at the Amelia Historical Society.) Actual records on LDS MICROFILM FHL US/CAN #1902616 (1736-1771). |
| 1765-1771 | LDS MICROFILM FHL US/CAN #1902616 |
| 1772-1777 | No records available |
| 1778-1782 | LDS MICROFILM FHL US/CAN #1902617 |
| 1783-1813 | FHL US/CAN #2024454 1787 PPTL published by Netti Schreiber-Yantis, 1993[4] 1790 and 1800 lists are available on-line[5] |
| 1814-1835 | FHL US/CAN #2024455 |
| 1836-1853 | FHL US/CAN #2024456 |
My Goal: To Index the Personal Property Tax Lists for Amelia County from 1765 through 1813
The earliest Personal Property Tax Lists for Amelia County, from 1736 to 1764, have already been indexed (see table on prior page). Although the book containing that very valuable index is now out of print, the Amelia County Historical Society has a copy of that book, and the Librarian can search it for you. If you would like to have Amelia Co., VA Tax Lists, 1736-1764: An Every-Name Index searched for particular surnames, write to the Amelia Historical Society indicating which surnames you are interested in. Include a stamped, self-addressed envelope and a check for $5-10 to cover copying costs and to support the society and their library.
Creating these tax lists required an annual census of sorts for Amelia County, and this was too large a job for one individual, particularly as more settlers moved in. In addition, the original county (formed in 1735 from Prince George county) was much larger than it is today, containing all of what is now Nottoway County (formed from Amelia County in 1788-9), and the eastern portion of Prince Edward County (formed from Amelia County in 1753-4). Thus each year, several individuals surveyed their own district, producing a list of the taxable individuals for their district. In 1749, for the first time the lists are differentiated by parish, with 3 lists submitted for Raleigh Parish, and two for Nottoway Parish. Nottoway Parish became Nottoway County in 1789, and those named on Nottoway Parish Tax Lists lived in what is now Nottoway County.
Because the Personal Property Tax Lists from 1736 to 1764 have already been indexed, I began with the microfilm records for 1765. I plan to abstract and index these lists in chronological order.
The first page of the 1765 list of William Crawley appears on the prior page. (Not all those compiling these tax lists had the beautiful penmanship that Crawley did. The earlier tax lists are particularly difficult to decipher.) Examining it closely, you will note that the first person named is the person responsible for paying the tax. Sometimes a person’s list of tithables is referred to as his “list,” and for others, it is not. Usually the total number of tithables is equal to the total number of individuals listed; but occasionally (and every one of these is entitled the “list” of that individual) the total number of tithables is one less than the total of those listed. I suspect that in these instances, the person paying the tax is excluded from this list, but is listed elsewhere in the county, at his place of residence. Another reason for exclusion is gender; women property owners (usually widows) were not taxable. There may be another explanation, one that I am ignorant of.
How This Index Was Created
My goal in creating this index was to capture the name of every free male listed, whether he was responsible for his own tax, or had his tax paid by someone else. I also wanted to make a distinction between those with property, and those without it. All these individuals appear in column 1.
Taxpayer: The name of the individual listed as responsible for the tithes (tax).
List: Each year’s Personal Property Tax records consist of several Lists, each representing a different part of the county. Each of these Lists was created by a different person, usually one of the more prominent and prosperous members of the community. Each of these assessors evidently called upon all those living in his district, compiling a list of all the tithables. They provided their list to the Sheriff of the county, who was responsible for actually collecting the tax each year. Because each List in a given year represents a different geographical area, it is important to identify on whose list an individual appears.
In 1765, there were FIVE such lists.
The LIST column contains the initials of the assessor upon whose list the individual appears:
| WC | William Crawley’s list, from Rawleigh (Raleigh) Parish below Deep Creek (The first page of this list can be viewed here.) |
| JB | John Booker’s list, from Rawleigh Parish |
| RM | Capt. Robert Munford’s list, from Nottoway Parish |
| TT | Col. Thomas Tabb’s list, from Rawleigh Parish |
| CW | Capt. Winn’s list (untitled; parish not specified, but likely Nottoway) |
Unfortunately, the exact boundaries of these 5 “districts” are not explicitly stated, but it is clear that they represent different sections of the county.
Other Free Males: When the person paying the tax paid the tax for other free males, I listed those individuals in this column. I ALSO enumerated these individuals on their own, so that they could be found in this index; see Column 6: COMMENTS.
Slaves: I decided to not transcribe the names of the slaves, because only their given names are recorded, and these names recur frequently. Instead I counted the number of slaves, and recorded that.
Acres: The number of acres listed for each individual. Many men owned no land.
Comments: In this column, I recorded any comments or special notations appearing for that individual. When a person did not pay their own tax, I direct the reader to name of the person who paid his tax in this column (“see _____”).
List = the record explicitly states “John Brown’s List.” In each case (as mentioned above), the number of tithes the named individual had was one less than the individuals on his List.
List? = those instances when the number of “tithables” was less than the total number of individuals named, but the word “List” did not appear by the taxpayer’s name; I presume this is equivalent to ‘List,’ above.
X = this record was crossed out on the original record. On Thomas Tabb’s list, for instance, several entire columns were individually crossed out. I doubt the significance of this, but recorded it like this anyway.
A Note About Spelling
I transcribed the names as I could decipher them, even when a different name seemed more logical. Spelling in this era was phonetic, and the concept of only one way to spell a given name had not blossomed yet. So COUSINS was variously spelled Cuzens, Cuzins, Cousens, Cousins, etc. The reader is advised to look for every conceivable variation of the surnames they search for.
And it might be well to look through the lists of letters that can be mistaken for each other, like B and R, F and T, S and L, etc. For instance, one name on this list is clearly written James BEEVES, but Reeves seems more likely. And the surname Jenkins also appears as Ginkins. Nevertheless, when the writing was clear, I transcribed it the way it was written.
Distinguishing between T and F, and between S and L, are particularly difficult with some handwriting. When possible, I referred to lists already alphabetized, but that was not always possible. I’ve done the best I can, but feel sure that some mistakes are inevitable.
When in doubt, one should review a photocopy or scan of the page in question. These are available from the author of this transcription for $1 and a stamped, self-addressed envelope.
I hope that this Index proves useful for many people who, like me, have roots in Amelia County.
5152 54th Avenue South
Seattle, Washington 98118-2114
USA
View the 1765 Personal Property Tax Lists
View the 1766 Personal Property Tax Lists
[1] Bob's Genealogy Filing Cabinet II has a fuller explanation of tithables. Here is an excerpt:
Lest this language be misinterpreted, it's important to note that the purpose of compiling the lists in the first place was to identify the persons responsible for the tax and the amount they owed, so that the sheriff could later collect the tax. Thus the first name in a "household" was the person from whom the tax was to be collected. The names or numbers of tithables in the "household" represented the amount of the tax owed (the specific levy usually not being determined until later.) Thus, the "household" was not a physical one, but rather a taxable one.
[2] There is a complete explanation of "tithables" at the Library of Virginia website.
[3] The 1736 list of Amelia County Tithables was transcribed by Steve Light of Haslett, Michgan.
[4] Individual 1787 Tax Lists For Virginia: Amelia County, by Netti Schreiber-Yantis, available from BigTreeBooks.com.
[5] Images of the actual 1790 and 1800 Property Tax Lists have been filmed by Binns Genealogy, and may be viewed free on-line.