That really points out one of my ambiguities. Strategic view assumptions: 1) a landowner has his own land to farm and if successful, will look for more to purchase and if successful, all that appears in the books. But, if 2) a landowner has his own land to farm and if successful, cannot find land to buy, but will then rent land, then the rental land becomes invisible.
Tactical view: If the landowner has rental property to farm, and his home farm is small, the tendency is to see him as a subsistence to small yeoman farmer and how to separate the two apart from the classic definition of "if he owns it, he's a yeoman farmer". Whereas he may well past a small yeoman farmer.
This practice is prevalent in today's farming system, but that goes as far back as the early 20th century.
Tenant farmers can be discerned by examination of the routes that census takers use as they are on the land they farm.
Of course, all of it is limited by distance. Prior to mechanized farming, in the case of #2 above, the radius must have been quite small.
I agree with Steve's interpretation of the PPT issues. It would be an interesting study to see how much of any given county was rented. but then one would have to have correlated all of the census tabulations and have the Civil War era maps digitized to figure out who was where in the county.
Lyle Browning
On Nov 26, 2014, at 8:32 AM, Steve <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I have working with land and personal property tax records in Buckingham County. The land tax records for many years note either "non-resident" or the landowners "home" county. While the personal property tax records do not say "tenant", I have assumed that those paying personal property tax (horse, cows and/or slaves), but no real estate tax are tenant farmers. If this is true then you could identify those renting, but not necessarily tie them to any specific landlord.
>
> Steve
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> From: "VA-HIST automatic digest system" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2014 12:00:05 AM
> Subject: VA-HIST Digest - 24 Nov 2014 to 25 Nov 2014 (#2014-72)
>
> There is 1 message totaling 86 lines in this issue.
>
> Topics of the day:
>
> 1. Absentee Landlord/Rental properties
>
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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> Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 11:04:36 -0500
> From: "Lyle E. Browning" <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Absentee Landlord/Rental properties
>
> Thanks to all who responded. My original intent was to determine if there were objective means of identifying yeoman farmers from subsistence farmers and from there whether there was also an objective means of establishing a continuum up to the plantation elites. The Land Tax Records showed absentee owners, the Agricultural Census showed net worth in some cases way out of line for the products produced, the Personal Property Tax Records showed yet other information and the Decennial Census tabulations shower yet other info. Without having it in digital format combined under one roof to perform low-level statistical analysis, it all rounded back to individual farms without any ability to see how they stacked up against others in the county.
>
> I have digitized Stafford records to add to those that Gary Stanton of UMW did, and have done the same for Nottoway County. Stanton has done most of the work in Spotsylvania but until they're all digitized, general comparisons of one person to averages to see how they fit economically is not going to be possible without a lot more work than I have time to do.
>
> Lyle Browning
>
>
>
> On Nov 24, 2014, at 10:19 AM, Barbara Vines Little <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> While I cannot speak for the 1840s, there are various account books that document colonial rentals. Beverley's are probably the most detailed. See John Weisner's transcriptions of a 1742 and a 1745 account book in the /Magazine of Virginia Genealogy/ 41 (2003).
>>
>> Land tax lists for Loudoun County also document some rentals. I can't cite the years for this. You may wish to contact Marty Hiatt <[log in to unmask]> for additional information.
>>
>> Barbara Vines Little, CG, FNGS, FVGS
>> PO Box 1273
>> Orange, VA 22960
>>
>> 540-832-3473
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
>> CG, Certified Genealogist, is a service mark of the Board for Certification of Genealogists, used
>> under license by board-certified genealogists after periodic evaluation; the board name is
>> registered in the US Patent & Trademark Office.
>>
>> On 11/21/2014 6:34 PM, Lyle E. Browning wrote:
>>> Has anyone run across rental land from the 17th century to 1865? The Agricultural Census tabulations certainly hint that absentee landowners were present from the 1840's onward. After 1865 the peculiar institution transformed to sharecropping and tenant farming for African-Americans. But, the US Agricultural Census tabulations seem to strongly indicate that land rental was practiced commonly in the 1840's and presumably earlier. Is there any literature that addresses that as a general issue?
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance,
>>>
>>> Lyle Browning
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>>
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> End of VA-HIST Digest - 24 Nov 2014 to 25 Nov 2014 (#2014-72)
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