In a message dated 12/4/01 8:52:50 AM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<< The article was called "The One Hundred."  It was by Jackson Turner Main
and
 it appeared in the William and Mary Quarterly around 1950-1952.  I'm sorry I
 don't have the exact citation here at work.  It is based on the land tax and
 personal property tax list of 1786 and 1787 -- the first years that offer
 almost complete coverage of all the counties in the Commonwealth.

 It is an excellent article and a fine example of quantitative history that
 is made accessible to the lay reader.

 Enjoy

 Peter V. Bergstrom

<<

Peter and Everyone,

Yesterday I went to the DAR library in Washington, DC, which has a complete
set of will book (including inventories & settlements), for Amelia Co VA,
until well past the mid-1800s.   I was looking to collect a couple of
specific Bentley & Robertson wills & inventories.  DAR actually has a number
of microfilms of local records from around the country (ie about 40 reels of
South Dakota church records), not to mention Rev. War pension files and
almost complete census records.

While scrolling through the microfilm, I thought that another interesting
quantitative study for some extremely hardy transcribers would be a list of
the 100 richest men who died in Virginia in a given short period of time
based on inventories, appraisals and settlements.  It'd be alot more
complicated than the tax lists, but would reveal a wealth of information.   I
began to do something similar with the five Powhatan Co tax lists for the
1780s, out of curiosity more than anything, but got bogged down in the wild
fluctuations in number of slaves from year to year (not accounted for by
instructions regarding information included) for my own families.
Inventories in general would provide food for all sorts of articles.

I plan to hunt the William and Mary article down.   I don't suppose that
anyone is talking about updating the Virginia Historical Index, I ask
hopefully??

Best Regards,

Janet (Baugh) Hunter

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