Last time I talked about the 1798 Direct Tax. This time, I want to talk about tax assessments during the Civil War. With the passage of the Internal Revenue Act on July 1, 1862 (12 Stat. 432), Congress authorized the collection of monthly and annual taxes on goods and services, licenses, income, and personal property. [...]

Did you know that the first federal direct tax was in 1798? This was a tax on real property (real estate or land) and slaves which was levied as a response to rising military tensions with France. Sometimes called the “Glass Tax” (referring to glass window panes, which indicated wealth), the records consist of various [...]

Did you know that you can find references to important historical events in our records? You’ve probably already seen some of what I’m talking about. Sometimes it’s obvious, as in the case of the Carpathia arriving in New York City on April 18, 1912 with the survivors from the Titanic. Sometimes, however, you can stumble [...]

We’ve all found ancestors whose names are spelled differently in every census record. Sometimes their ages don’t match up either – for example, if someone is 32 in the 1910 census, they should be 42 in the 1920 census. Frequently, however, you will see that they are listed as 38 or 40 instead. We’ve touched [...]

A while back, I talked about passport applications. These are some of my favorite records, so I thought I’d examine a typical application in detail, to show you what type of information you can find. On January 6, 1923, Sidney van Slaars’ passport application (#241469) was approved. Sidney was born in New York City “on [...]

Have you ever tried to find an obituary or a death certificate for an ancestor, only to run into a brick wall because you don’t know the exact date of death? Well, if your ancestor was a U.S. citizen and died overseas, you might just be in luck. Overseas deaths of U.S. citizens are reported [...]

In my last post, I mentioned that I was unable to use the 1890 Census in my research because it was destroyed in the 1920s. I thought it was worth taking a look at exactly what happened. In 1921, the 1890 Census was stored in the Commerce Department. On the afternoon of January 10, 1921, [...]

Last time I showed you what I found on my family by using the 1920 and 1900 censuses. Most of the 1890 census was destroyed in a fire in the Commerce Department in the early 1920s, so I wasn’t able to use it. In 1880, however, I found what I had been looking for since [...]

Last time I showed you how I used the 1930 census to get started on my own family history research. Today, I’m going to show you what I was able to find using some of the earlier census records. Since Nannie Crozier and her family were living in Collin County, Texas in 1930, I started [...]

New researchers are always asking us how to start tracing their family tree. We have so many records that it’s very easy to become overwhelmed when you are beginning your research. We usually tell people to gather as much information about their family as possible, and to ask themselves how their ancestors interacted with the [...]