Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Pennsylvania Tax and Exoneration, 1768-1801, Records for Martin Carringer

One of the recently added new databases on Ancestry.com is the Pennsylvania Tax and Exoneration, 1768-1801 set of records for 18 counties.

The original data for this database is from:

Original data:
Tax & Exoneration Lists, 1762–1794. Series No. 4.61; Records of the Office of the Comptroller General, RG-4. Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

The description of this database is:

This database contains exoneration returns and diverse tax lists from Revolutionary-era Pennsylvania. These include documents for supply taxes, 18-penny taxes, liquor taxes, carriage and billiard table taxes, and others. Supply taxes were levied to help pay debts from the Revolutionary War, while the 18-penny tax included both a poll tax on freemen and property taxes assessed to back issuances of paper money.
Records from the following counties are included:
  • Allegheny
  • Bedford
  • Berks
  • Bucks
  • Chester
  • Cumberland
  • Dauphin
  • Fayette
  • Franklin
  • Huntingdon
  • Lancaster
  • Montgomery
  • Northampton
  • Northumberland
  • Philadelphia
  • Washington
  • Westmoreland
  • York

I was curious to see if my end-of-line ancestor, Martin Carringer, was in these records, and if there were other persons with that surname (or similar) also.

I searched the database with the surname "car*ger" and received 24 matches.  Martin Carringer in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania had five entries for the 1787 to 1789 time period.  The first one is for Rostraver township in Westmoreland County in 1787:


There are a number of columns on this page and it is difficult to determine the heading when it is vertical on the page, as above.  So I clicked "Rotate" on the Ancestry menu and was able to easily see the headings.


A snippet for Martin Carringer's row in this record looks like this:


The row for Martin Carringer indicates that:

Name:  Carringer, Martin
Land held by Patent:  
Land held by Warrant:
Land held by Location:  150 [acres]
Land held by Improve:
Servants:
Negroes:
Mulatto slaves:
Horses &c:
Horned Cattle:  1
Grist mills:
Saw mills:
Horse mills:
Mills &c:
Breweries:
Tanyards:
Ferries:
Wrought plate:
Hoses &c:
Lots:
Value:  39 pounds

Unfortunately, there were no earlier Carringer (or variant spellings) entries in Westmoreland County.  There are a number of Hoak/Houk/Hoke entries in Westmoreland county also.  I'm going to enjoy mining this database!

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/06/pennsylvania-tax-and-exoneration-1768.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

7 comments:

Sara Gredler said...

Thanks for the heads-up, Randy! I found a few records for one of my ancestors, and after seeing them in the PA Archives, it was nice to see the actual handwriting!

Geolover said...

Thanks for pointing to this wonderful image database!

Unfortunately it is extremely difficult to develop accurate source citations. While the Ancestry.com pages do in this case give the actual microfilm number in the series, the original series was by Year, then by County, and then by Township or Borough. Unfortunately either Ancestry.com or their source cut up the microfilm images as uploaded, rearranging the grouping exclusively by Township/Borough. This eliminates ability to cite the proper image number from the original microfilm roll, and sometimes the last page for a given Township's series is missing - but might be found opposite or above the beginning of the next Township/Borough as-microfilmed.

Ancestry.com has done the same sort of cutting-up for the 1870 US Census non-population schedules, separating the verso of the last page for a given district (in sparsely populated areas the missing image is often the back of the only sheet for the district).

I really would like to see a lot of lobbying for maintaining integrity of the records.

Sean Atkisson said...

Thanks Randy for the great information. When I tried to match up the columns that you had given with the county then I'm looking at in 1786, they don't seem to match. Could it be that the columns were different over the years or from county to county?

Unknown said...

I'm working in Berks County. How do I know from the ancestry pages which year a given page is from???

Unknown said...

Sara, You don't! The Ancestry.com lists and completely useless. As stated above, the original microfilm was cut up to rearrange the Ancestry images by township. However, the year of the tax and any information explaining the tax is no longer associated with the individual townships. There are copies of the original tax lists available at the archives in Harrisburg and at HSP in Philadelphia. BCHS also has some microfilm of early 19th century tax lists as well.

George Kirlin

Caryl said...

Does this interpretation of a source that I found on Ancestry.com for Rudolph Dettweiler b 1771 make sense?
Tulpehochen, Berks, PA record of taxation 1788:
150 pounds: Value of land
12 pounds: Value of 2 horses and 4 horned cattle
150 pounds: Value of grist mill
412 pounds: Value total
Tax for 1788:
1 pound 10 shillings 3 pence
flahertycarol@hotmail.com

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