At least two John Brawners owned property in other counties. This researcher is taking the records of at least 3 John Brawners and lumping them into one. This researcher has him living in Pittsylvania County long enough to sire a passle of children (which don't belong to any of the John Brawners), owning land in Fairfax County, VA, receiving aid from the parish in Prince William county, owning land in Charles County, MD, dying in one of Pitts or Prince William or Fairfax Counties and his estate probated in Charles County, MD. However, casual reasearchers are taking the researcher to be the current "authority" on the family. In addition, the records of my John Brawner, whose family was and still is quite respectable members of any community, are being assigned to the researcher's John Brawner. Needless to say, it doesn't do my "wah" one bit of good! My family has always kept quite a family history but it was just for fun--and something with which to threaten good behaviour out of our children "if you want to be a member of THIS family...". I'm the first to attempt to document it by today's more rigorous standards, I think. Norma Thompson P.S. Thank you very much for the information. I need that sort of corroberation of my understanding of taxes. I surely don't get out of them for owning property elsewhere! ----- Original Message ----- From: "melanie d. crain" <mdcrain@mindspring.com> To: <VAPITTSY-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2000 2:53 PM Subject: [VAPITTSY-L] Re: John Brawner > Norma, > Thus far, I have seen only a handful of reasons why anyone is exempted > from taxes in the 18th century in Pittsylvania Co.: > 1. advanced age > 2. debilitating health > 3. mental health problems > > The Personal Property Taxes were charged and collected separately from > Land Taxes (and people who owned land paid both types of taxes). Thus > the argument that John Brawner wasn't taxed because he owned land > somewhere else doesn't apply to the Personal Property Taxes which the > Court Order is referring to. > > The law mandated that every white male over 21 pay a head tax on himself > and any other male that age or older who lived in his household in the > county where he resided. Other items of personal property were then > taxed (horses, cows, etc) and those items sometimes changed from year to > year. > > Just curious--did John Brawner own land elsewhere? For strength of > proof, it would seem the whole argument falls apart on that point alone > if the other researcher has no land records to back up their assertion. > > Good luck; hope you get other responses so we can compare our > understanding of these court orders. > > Melanie Crain > > > ==== VAPITTSY Mailing List ==== > Pittsylvania County Files online! Visit the Pittsylvania County Archives at http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/va/pittsylv.htm > >