West Virginia Taxation

A set of annual land tax assessment records from 1782 to 1900 is available at the State Auditor's Office (Capitol Complex, Charleston, West Virginia 25305-0300). Duplicate copies are usually found at the county clerk's offices in the land books.

The Virginia State Libraryhas the original personal property tax books for West Virginia counties from 1782 to 1863. The West Virginia Archives and History Library has tax books from 1863 to 1935. See the Virginia Research Outline for information on pre-1863 tax records.

The Family History Library has microfilm copies of the nineteenth century tax records of most counties.

The 1787 personal property lists have been published as a substitute for the 1790 census (see the “Census” section of this outline) in Netti Schreiner-Yantis and Florence Speakman Love, Compilers, The 1787 Census of Virginia: An Accounting of the Names of Every White Male Tithable Over 21 Years. Three Volumes. (Springfield, Virginia: Genealogical Books in Print, 1987).

As a substitute for the missing 1800 Virginia census, use the abstracts of the personal property tax lists of 1800 for the 13 counties in the area that became West Virginia. These have been published in Steven A. Bridges, Virginians in 1800: Counties of West Virginia(Trumbull, Connecticut: Steven A. Bridges, 1987).