Statewide

Blount County Tennessee Tax Lists

Tennessee tax lists typically list the names of white males over age 21 and will sometimes provide information about that person’s land, slaves, and other property. They may also include valuations. They can be useful both for locating an ancestor and providing an idea about his circumstances. 1801 Blount County Tennessee Tax List Online Blount County Tennessee Tax Records Ancestry.com, in partnership with the Tennessee State Library and Archives, has added an index to and scanned images of Tennessee tax records for the years 1783 – 1895. The indexes to these records at Ancestry.com’s Tennessee State Library and Archives web … Read more

Blount County Tennessee Census Records

Parts of Blount County, Tennessee were settled before 1800. Only the tabular data remains for the territorial census taken in 1791 and 1795, however, and as such, are not useful for genealogical research. A great substitute for these early census is a series of three volumes compiled by Lucy Kate McGhee and self published in 1960’s, Partial census of 1787 to 1791 of Tennessee as taken from the North Carolina land grants. 1800 Blount County Tennessee Census Records The 1800 Blount County Tennessee census is lost. Since this census was primarily a head of household index with tabular results for … Read more

1801 Blount County Tennessee Tax List

Blount County TN 1801 Tax List - Page 01

After the county was organized and for several years, the tax rates were fixed and the lists of taxables were ordered to be taken by the county court. The county courts were authorized to tax property by a legislative act passed October 25, 1797, in which the types of taxable property were listed and the method of taking the taxes was prescribed. White polls consisted of “all free males and male servants between the age of twenty one and fifty years”; slaves, “all slaves male and female, between the age of twelve and fifty years.” The amount of tax to … Read more

Using Tennessee Tax Records

Federal distillery tax book, image 3, page 1

Tax records tend to be one of the least used resources available to genealogists and historical researchers. Tax records can be valuable in a number of ways: tax lists offer a better understanding of the status and wealth of people during a certain era of time; such records can help pinpoint when an ancestor lived in a certain community between the years U.S. censuses were taken; they can also be used to help determine when a person died; and land ownership questions are often answered through a search of tax records. In addition, tax data can offer beneficial historical insights … Read more