Patti, Even though they are not arranged by militia captain, it sounds like you are within the time frame where the militia captain still collected the taxes. The list is arranged by first letter of surname, as you stated. Then by date collected. So one militia may have met on May 30. Under that date all the men that paid tax, but they are spread throughout the list under the first letter of the surname. Example: A captain collected tax from six people on May 30 Alex Bailey Zach Waller Timothy Higgins Sam McCann Sam'l Herron Alex Bailey will be found under May 30 (the date he paid tax) under the "B's." Zach Waller will be found under May 30 (the date he paid tax) under the "W's." Timothy Higgins and Sam'l Herron will be found under May 30 (the date they paid tax) under the "H's." Sam McCann will be found under May 30 (the date he paid tax) under the "M's." The same captain collected tax for four more people on June 20. Sarah Collins Thomas McCann Joseph Smiley Grant Whalen Sarah Collins will be found under June 20 (the date she paid tax) under the "C's." Thomas McCann will be found under June 20 (the date he paid tax) under the "M's" where his brother Sam is from May 30. Joseph Smiley will be found under June 20 (the date he paid tax) under the "S's." Grant Whalen will be found under June 20 (the date he paid tax) under the "W's," joining Zach Waller. The dates on the lists I have worked with have always been arranged under each letter in chronological order. You need to be aware that there were no exceptions to taxes. Anyone with property or poll would be on the list, including women and minors. Items taxed changed almost yearly, so you cannot assume that the list headers are the same year after year. A good collector in early Kentucky is worth his weight in gold. Rondina _______________________ Rondina P. Muncy Ancestral Analysis 4008 Linden Avenue Fort Worth, Texas 76107 682.224.6584 [email protected] www.ancestralanalysis.com On Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 6:58 PM, Patricia Hobbs via < [email protected]> wrote: > Granted I have not looked at that many Kentucky tax lists, but those I'm > viewing for Washington County, Kentucky, have something I've not seen in > other tax lists. > > Each list is arranged in the usual way by first letter of last name. There > is one list for the year for the entire county-- not divided by "captains" > as I've seen in some. Along the left margins are dates ranging from May > through September-- most being in May through July. There are not very many > days represented in each month -- perhaps two or three, but sometimes only > one. There are many names listed under each date, so each person is not > individually dated. AND the dates are not in order. So you might have May > 27 with a few names, and then June 10 with a few names. Then back to April > 12 with a few names. Sometimes there is only one name associated with a > date. > > I'm wondering how this might have been created, and wondered if anyone > would know. I at first thought that entries were made spread out in order > to allow additional entries. Then the scribe returned and filled in the > gaps when he ran out of space. Would the groups of people on a particular > date represent those who happened to come into a town on a particular date, > or might he have been traveling about the countryside rating the land? If > he was traveling perhaps those listed on the same dates in the various > letters of surnames were living in the same general area. > > I have thought that a useful exercise might be to try to reconstruct the > list as the assessor did to see if some logical reason springs to mind, but > I thought I'd ask first if anyone already knows. ;-) > > Patti > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word > 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >