E. W.: I received this newsletter, today, and thought that those of you, who are searching for early KY records, might find this article interesting. I hope you find it helpful in your research. Linda Johnston Virginia Treasury Warrants Databases and other Kentucky Genealogy Delights http://sos.ky.gov/land This website now posts new databases for more than 23,000 treasury warrants for Virginia lands in what is now Kentucky. Under the May 1779 Virginia Land Law, warrants could be purchased from the Land Office for 40 pounds per 100 acres. And they include some 300 treasury warrants issued to George Rogers Clark to help him recruit the army 1) to subdue the Indians in the Indiana country and 2) to take the land for the Confederated States of America. The online database launch was announced at the NGS Conference in Richmond VA, 18 May 2007 Kentucky Secretary of State, Trey Grayson. The real significance in making these warrants available in fully indexed and searchable databases must not be underestimated. For all these many years we have been dependent upon transcribed versions of the records-issued by the Filson Club with segments reviewed in genealogy and historical periodicals by genealogists, land speculators, and historians trying to understand the early land system. Now you can examine these records yourself. Search spelling variants. Compare land entries made by the same men at different dates. Preview watercourses on which the lands lie and, using modern topographical maps, plot their boundaries with sophisticated digital mapping programs-who were the early neighbors? Did they actually take up residence on their lands? By what rights did your ancestor claim his land? Tomahawk? Corn? Cabin? Preemption? The warrants will tell you-did your ancestor receive a certificate of settlement? The databases include Lincoln entries, 1779-1792, preemption warrants, 1779-1780, and certificates, 1779-1780. There is full glossary and an online gazeteer to assist you in reading the documents and understanding where the land was located. I recommend that you search the databases along with these resources: VIRGINIA LAND RECORDS IN KENTUCKY AND OHIO: RICHARD CLOUGH ANDERSON COLLECTION - Registrar, Virginia Land Office and his son-in-law Allen Latham at Chillicothe, OH to 1822. 1. Illinois Historical Survey, University of Illinois at Urbana Ledger Book A on spine; in Archive Inventory Ledger Book 5 Cash Account Book, 1784-1799 Alpha list of names with year and page # in "Virginia Land Grants in Kentucky and Ohio, 1784-1799," by Clifford Neal Smith, National Genealogical Society Quarterly 61 (1973) 16-27. 10,000 items include large ledgers (includes warrants for French and Indian Wars) 2. Archives Division, Virginia Library, Richmond VA. 2,500 items. 3. Western Reserve Historical Society Collections, Cleveland, Ohio. 5 feet of archival material. Includes 4,000 Virginia Bounty-Land Warrants. 4. Virginia Land Office, Kentucky. 16,000 Bounty-Land Warrants in Kentucky Land grants in the Virginia Military District of Ohio Published: Kentucky Land Grants. 2 vols. 1925. Compiled by Willard Rouse Jillson. Filson Club Publication, No. 33-34; and Federal Land Series, Vol. IV: Grants in the Virginia Military Land District. Compiled by Clifford Neal Smith. Chicago: American Library Association, 1982-86. Study also Samuel M. Wilson, Catalogue of Revolutionary Soldiers and Sailors of the Commonwealth of Virginia to whom Land Bounty Warrants were Granted for Virginia Military Services in the War for Independence. Reprint of 1913 Year Book of the Kentucky Society of the SAR and 1917 Yearbook of Society of Colonial Wars in Kentucky. 1994. Southern Historical Press, P.O. Box 1267, 375 W. Broad Street, Greenville, SC 29602. Includes new index, and both warrants and surveys by bundle. 5. Early Kentucky Land Records, 1773-1780, by Neal O. Hammon. Louisville, KY: Filson Club Publications, 1992. A new reading of the original warrants, surveys, and military claims. Using computer property-mapping software, the author also provides land ownership maps for these early claims. 6. "Kentucky Land Lotteries, 1789-1800." Advertised in newspapers throughout the East, offered 40,000 acres in 150 Acre lots for $15.00 per ticket. 7. Eakle, Arlene H. and Linda E. Brinkerhoff. Early Kentucky Stations and Settlers before 1800. Family History World, P.O. Box 129, Tremonton, UT 84337. Your favorite Virginia genealogist, Arlene Eakle http://www.arleneeakle.com link: http://virginiagenealogyblog.com/2008/08/05/virginia-treasury-warrants-database-and-other-kentucky-genealogy-delights/ > Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 00:18:04 EDT > From: Hdanw@aol.com > Subject: [GERMANNA] Kemper Taxpayers in Early Kentucky > > Sandi Gorin is the web coordinator of Kentucky Research, URL given so that > you may subscribe. > > _KYRESEARCH-admin@rootsweb.com_ (mailto:KYRESEARCH-admin@rootsweb.com) > > > > Some of my Kemper ancestors settled in Garrard Co., KY and are found there > in some of the later censuses. They appear in these early tax lists, the > county given after the names. > > Kempers, also spelled Camper, and Kamper, were of the First Germanna > Colony, although John Kemper is said to have been a bachelor. > > These Kemper males in early Kentucky may be the cousins or uncles of the > Garrard Co., KY bunch. > > (Tip: Look for misspellings of your surnames. One of the families into > which/whom my families married were named Quisenberry. Sandi had some of > them > listed [as she found them] under C for Cusonberry or some such and also > under > G [for another variant]!) > > Kentucky did not become a state [commonwealth] until 1792, and some of the > early censuses are missing. Hence tax lists are fairly good census > substitutes. Sandi wrote that she did not have the original tax lists. > > Kentucky was attractive because of the ability to acquire land relatively > easy. Until well after the Revolution, primogeniture was the law in > Virginia. > One archivist said that for that reason the eldest son's name may be > omitted from Virginia wills. By law, the eldest son was entitled to the > land. > Hence the big migration to Kentucky probably by those who were not given > land by > their fathers [as some of the land-wealthy fathers did] or did not > inherit > land in Virginia. Of course, Pennsylvanians and North Carolinians poured > into > Kentucky also. > > KEMPER: Henry, _Fayette_ > (http://www.ancestry.com/facts/fayette-family-history.ashx) , 1790; > _Tilman_ > (http://www.ancestry.com/facts/tilman-family-history.ashx) , _Fayette_ > (http://www.ancestry.com/facts/fayette-family-history.ashx) > , 1790. > > Some of the Kempers, at least of Garrard Co., KY, formed from Mercer Co., > married a good many of their Holzclaw [variant spellings] cousins, some of > whom > across the Dick's River in Mercer Co. > > HOLTZCLAW: James, Nelson, 1792; Kelly, Nelson, 1792. > > > Unless you use the Archives for rootsweb, now owned by Ancestry.com, but > still free, you will not find past issues of these tax lists for KY > Research. > > KYRESEARCH Archives:http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index?list=kyresearch > > > For earlier appearances on tax lists of some of the Germanna colonists > who > removed to Kentucky, you might try to find in a library near you the > so-called > 1787 Census of Virginia, which included the then-counties of Kentucky, > still > part of Virginia in 1787. The title of the three volumes > > Netti Schreiner-Yantis and Florine S. Love, The 1787 Census of Virginia. > > These are personal property tax lists and not real property tax lists. > They > are pretty good people finders for large numbers of Virginians and > Kentuckians, some of whom owned personal property in several > Virginia/Kentucky > counties. The third volume of this set is an index to the two preceding > volumes. > Some of the counties have three personal property tax lists, and some > widows > are listed. Use the index first, and if your surname is common, > photocopy the > index as there will be many entries, then arrange the page numbers in > numerical order so that you can peruse/photocopy the appropriate pages, > including > the key to the meaning of these tax lists. > > E.W.Wallace