Hi Neil, The genealogy source I used meant that 90% of the people at some point owned or 'owned' (including squatters), land, not that 90% of the people living in a given locale at any given time owned land. That's because for someone doing genealogy what is important to recognise is the criticality of land records in colonial America. 90% of your ancestors will appear in SOME land record. Very possibly NOT the one you need them in -- if your experience is anywhere similar to mine <grin>. So the percentage of land owners is much lower than the 90% figure I mentioned because the 90% does not relate to a single moment in time in a given location, but means that there is a 90% change that your John Anderson appears in some land record, somewhere, at some time. Mine does. He buys land in Western PA. WHile he's rumored to have lived in Old Cumberland Co, there's no land records that name him there, that I've found. Of couse I've not read every deed in three or four counties.... Land records in colonial and post colonial America are not easy. One of the problems is that obtaining a grant (ie buying land from the state or colony, not an individual) was a process. Sometimes our ancestors started the process with a warrant but sold the warrant and the land. They do not appear in the grants. Or they bought the warrant. It's very confusing. Often they squatted on land for their whole lives, As one was not required to register land sales, it is possible the ancestor owned land but doesn't appear in the deedbook or any other. He will appear in the militia records and tax records. If those survive. The only way to know for sure that the ancestor didn't own land is to not find him in the tax records, but they often don't survive. And I suspect some of mine could figure out a way to evade the tax man anyway.... >example, my earliest proved ancestor of VA>MD>sw PA>flatboat to Maysville, >KY 1790>OH (all during 1760-1796) apparently did not own land until 1791 in >KY before he moved his family across river into Northwest Territory in 1796. He may not have legally owned land. Have you checked court records to see if he is named in the 1781 (I think it was) proceedings where people who could prove that they had been settled on land for a year could purchase at reduced prices? Sometimes in KY that's one way to determine if the person was there in 1780 (I think it was). Of course the person could have continued to live on the land and not purchased, but moved to either purchase better or cheaper land elsewhere. Anyway if the man appears in the Northwest Territory records (or somewhere in his life or death), then he goes into the 90% side of the pile. Ie he appears in some land records. The Harper book sou nds like a must read but again, doesn't contradict the statement that I lifted from another source. Also you can sometimes find info about a 18th century ancestor who originally settled a plot of land by searching the deedbooks WAY into the 1800s, approaching 1900. Having read about this strategy, my sister undertook it to try to identify the parents of one of our brick walls here in Western PA. Around 1880 our great great grandad registered the deed, naming everyone he ever knew who could testafy that he had received the land from his father. He named all his brothers and sisters. His father spelled his name differently and does not appear in any land records. It must have been a private sale for which the deed was never registered. Thanks for giving me the chance to clarify what the 90% figure means. Linda Merle ________________________________________________________________ Sent via the WebMail system at mail.fea.net

I second this one, even when you are searching for later records. I was positive my maternal grandfather (German immigrant to Wisconsin, 1854), an itinerant saw-sharpener for lumber mills, had never left ANY record of his presence anywhere. He didn't attend any church, hold a regular job, or earn enough money to buy any property. His job required him to travel from mill to mill, and he certainly didn't get any paid vacations, so he was rarely at home for any length of time. He was away when the one census where he was mentioned was taken, and the inaccurate information given came from his oldest daughter. Ever hopeful, however, I entered his name in a Wisconsin land record site, and lo & behold, he had filed homestead papers on 200 acres! I guess that was a hopeful moment for him, but he evidently failed to follow up. To be fair, he may have had good intentions, but the lumber industry began to falter in Wisconsin, so he moved to Washington State soon after the filing. I never met the old codger, who deserted his wife & nine girls soon after he moved the family to Washington, and left Grandma Hester to raise them on her own, far from family & friends . . . In the hands of a skilled writer, her story would make a good novel! Virginia >That's because for someone doing genealogy what is important to recognise > >is the criticality of land records in colonial America. 90% of your > ancestors will appear in SOME land record. Very possibly > NOT the one you need them in -- if your experience is anywhere > similar to mine <grin>. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.13.13/195 - Release Date: 12/8/2005

Ok Linda, thanks for the clarification, where the original statement seemed to mislead researchers (to me.) Even so, I don't understand how 'they' (source?) could have calculated the 90% chance of finding land ownership records sometime during the lifetime of any given ancestor. This still seems very high to me, in light of the work by Harper and others. In sw PA, for example, the % of landowning tax payers was 'decreasing' during the 1780-1800 period. By 1796 the landowning yeoman farmer group was near 30% of taxable population (but who owned 2/3 of the land) with the largest group being landless 'dependents,' at 43% of the population. These 'dependents' consisted of general laborers, farm laborers and tenant farmers with the remainder being the feeble, the poor and otherwise unemployables. With this arrangement of land ownership, or lack of it, being typical...well, someone else can do the math but it seems that 100% of this 'dependent' group would have had to purchase land previously or later, somewhere, in order for 90% of this total multi-county population to be classified as landowners by end of the population lifetime (highly unlikely to me.) Oh well, this isn't math class and the important thing is for listers to continue searching land deeds and tax lists in spite of their likelihood of success. Military records have provided the most interesting ancestral info for me, with courthouse records being important as well -- yes, follow these for later years as well, as for example, the widow (2nd wife) of my ancestor provided many interesting bits of info concerning probate and pension application matters. As to my ancestor in KY, he only arrived in Mason Co. KY in the autumn of 1790 and first appeared on tax lists for 1791. Firstly, there was a taxable horse and cow, then more animals and finally 50 acres taxable in 1795 (yeau, I know that's not proof of land ownership but for a 4-year period of his life that's ok with me.) He and his family then disappear from KY and show up across the river in Ohio Territory where his land deed for 100+ acres is found (before that state was formed.) Finding ancestors in early tax records is definitely good, but 'not' finding them 'usually' meant they weren't there from my experiences (with few exceptions.) At least for the tax records I have studied, the tax laws and assessor were very good about trying to include as many of the population as possible. If ancestors were listed, the record would sometimes show the number of horses, cattle and sheep, and farm acreage (maybe the amount cleared.) When such detail was not shown, the amount of tax to be paid usually revealed (from the approximate tax rate) whether land ownership was included and the approximate acreage. Many other details were included in sw PA such as the head tax on 'Single Freemen,' info about absentee owners, rental agreements, etc. etc. It was interesting to learn several years ago about 'the sytem' developed between landowning farmers and the 'dependents' group. Of course there were some straightforward sharecropping agreements but otherwise the system of accounting for 'wages' and bartering was sometimes rather complex, with accounts kept in terms of English pounds, shillings and pence, like for taxes, but there was no currency in kind for payment except equivalent cut pieces of Spanish coins. A rather elaborate barter arrangement therefore translated the value of various commodities for various types of work or jobs or 'cut' of the harvest. Large landowners also sometimes allowed relatives and friends to live on their land in return for clearing it and making improvements, as the grandson of my previously described ancestor allowed in Indiana after returning from the California goldfields in 1853. (Yeau, my ancestors were there, too, Clifton even took his wife & kids along.) Best wishes, Neil McDonald ----- Original Message ----- From: "Linda Merle" <merle@mail.fea.net> To: <Scotch-Irish-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2005 4:05 PM Subject: Re: [Sc-Ir] Re: Land ownership; indentured servant; ports of emigration; Early Scotch-Irish arrivals > Hi Neil, > > The genealogy source I used meant that 90% of > the people at some point owned or 'owned' (including squatters), > land, not that 90% of the people living in a given locale > at any given time owned land..........