Beginning in 1783, the General Assembly required that county tax
officials collect land and personal property taxes payable to the state
treasury and to send to the capital a copy of each year's land and
personal property tax lists. The Library of Virginia has on microfilm
virtually all of the volumes through the end of the nineteenth century,
with the exception of some individual returns that are missing. 
 
Local tax lists pre-dating 1783 exist for some counties but probably not
in a complete run for any of them. Local tax lists were called tithable
lists because people were taxed to support the parishes of the Church of
England as well as to support the county government and the colonial
government. The surviving lists, for the most part, are county records
and are often found in the microfilmed county records. For a list of
counties for which some tithable lists survive, please see 
http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/guides/tithables_vanote.htm
 
Brent Tarter
The Library of Virginia
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Please visit the Library of Virginia's Web site at
http://www.lva.virginia.gov
 

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