| |
Early Mason County Tithables
|
|
|
On This Page:
|
|
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
In keeping with the policy of providing free genealogical information on the Internet, data presented on this website may be used freely for personal research. While copyright may not be claimed on public records, copyright does apply to the compilation and formatting of the materials for presentation. These electronic pages may not be reproduced or distributed in any format. The contributor of materials from private and unpublished sources retains copyright on their submissions. Persons or entities wishing to use such materials for profit or presentation must obtain the written consent of the contributor. When using data found on this website, this copyright notice and an appropriate citation of source should appear with the information.
|
After Mason County was formed in 1789, the tax man wasted no time calling on Mason County residents. The first tax roll was taken in 1790 and is only 8 pages. As testament to the growth of the county, the next four years were 10, 25, 23 and 41 pages, respectively. Virtually everybody had some taxable property, even if it was only a horse or cow. All years are organized alphabetically, making the list easy to search. Some years show the date the tax man visited the neighborhood, a clue to neighbors who may have been relatives.
The county tax rolls are a wonderful substitute for Kentucky's lost 1790 and 1800 U.S. Census enumerations. Taken annually, they track the movement of ancestors and their extended family groups, and provide a glimpse of the level of the family's prosperity.
The earliest original tax books are well over 200 years old. The ink has faded with age and many have extensive water damage. On some especially faded spots, I used Adobe PhotoShop to raise the contrast in an effort to interpret the writing. These are noted in the page list below. I also used Photoshop to invert (negative to positive), which may help in figuring out some names. If you can't read a name one way, try the inverse version.
More years will be put on-line as time permits, so please keep checking this site.
|
