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Subject: [RHEA-L] VA Notes on 1790 Census of U.S.
Date: Sat, 4 Dec 1999 11:51:59 EST

VA-NOTES
1790 Virginia Census

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The original manuscript schedules for the First and Second United States
Census Returns for Virginia, taken in 1790 and 1800, were destroyed when the
British Army occupied Washington, D.C., in August 1814. The schedules, which
named the heads of households and contained the number of inhabitants in each
household, were lost, and only published abstracts containing the number of
inhabitants of each county survive.

In 1908 the Bureau of the Census published a twelve-volume compilation of
names of heads of households from the surviving incomplete records. The
confusingly titled Virginia volume, Heads of Families at the First Census of
the United States taken in the year 1790: Records of the State Enumerations,
1782-1785: Virginia, is indexed and has been reprinted several times. It was
prepared from an incomplete collection of surviving manuscript lists of heads
of households that the government of Virginia compiled in 1782, 1783, 1784,
and 1785. Those Lists of Inhabitants, which cover only thirty-nine counties
and one city, are in the Library of Virginia and have been filmed on
Miscellaneous Microfilm Reel number 1263. Copies of the lists for the City of
Richmond, the earliest of which was included in the Heads of Families, are
now separately filed with the early local government records of the city in
the Library of Virginia.

To supplement the Heads of Families, Augusta B. Fothergill and John M. Naugle
compiled and published Virginia Tax Payers, 1782-87 Other Than Those
Published by the United States Census Bureau (Richmond, 1940), which has gone
through several reprint editions. Virginia Tax Payers contains lists of
taxpaying heads of households for thirty-five counties not covered in Heads
of Households. Their principal source for each county is the earliest
surviving state personal property tax list. The personal property tax
returns, most of which begin in 1782, are also in the Library of Virginia and
have been microfilmed.

Netti Schreiner-Yantis and Florence Speakman Love subsequently compiled and
published The 1787 Census of Virginia: An Accounting of the Name of Every
White Male Tithable Over 21 Years, three volumes (Springfield, Va., 1987),
which was also issued in a series of individual county volumes. Their
principal source was not a census but the 1787 state personal property tax
lists. It is the only compilation of eighteenth-century Virginia taxpayers
from one uniform source.

There are no proper pre-1800 census returns for Virginia. Researchers who use
Heads of Families, Virginia Tax Payers, and The 1787 Census of Virginia are
advised to consult the Virginia laws to learn what information the lists
contain and do not contain. For the 1782, 1783, 1784, and 1785 enumerations,
see Hening's Statutes at Large, 11:40-41, 108, 193, 415-417. For the first of
the Virginia personal property tax laws, adopted in 1782, see Hening's
Statutes at Large, 11:112-129. The 1787 personal property tax law is in
Hening's Statutes at Large, 12:243-255.


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An online series on Research in Virginia Documents.
Prepared by Daphne Gentry, Publications and Education Services Division.
Copyright by The Library of Virginia; this note may be reproduced in full if
proper credit is given and no changes are made.



Patricia L. Hall
Olathe, Ks.

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