As many turn their attention to tax returns, we should remember what an important source of information real estate and other taxes are in our genealogy research.
Those of us with Georgia ancestors are lucky that the state has such a good record of preserving tax returns, known as digests, from the late 1700s to recent decades. The Georgia Archives has on microfilm most of the surviving county-based tax digests from before the Civil War and also has, starting with about 1872, the state copy of the original digests from most Georgia counties.
Many of the pre-1865 ones have been digitized on Ancestry.com, as well as those that serve as a replacement for the missing 1890 census. The antebellum digests record all white males over 21, whether they owned land or not, this being the original poll tax. Sometimes, it’s the only record of some ancestors’ existence if they owned no land. Enslaved people were taxed in Georgia only by number within their owner’s returns. If one looks at some Virginia’s tax records, you can find slaves listed by name.
After the Civil War, freedmen in Georgia were listed at the back of the digest grouped by employer. That can often lead one back to the earlier planters themselves, or at least to the area of the county where they lived during slavery.
Four ways to give back to the genealogical community
Aaron Goodwin, editor of the National Genealogical Society’s NGS Monthly, has written an article in the October-December 2017 NGS Magazine on “Four Ways to Give Back to the Genealogical Community.” These are good ideas to follow and some genealogical societies would do well to promote them in their publications. The four are: Write up your research, at least in small booklets or memos, which are easier to share. Join an indexing project. Add to Find a Grave (a free website). The last suggestion is to donate to your favorite organizations. One could make non-monetary donations as well. These are good, concise, ideas people should think about.
Meaning of names
See the website Behind the Name at behindthename.com to learn the meaning and origins of your family’s first names. It also goes into different nationalities for name origins. A lot can be learned from studying the origins of your family’s names.
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