II Using Tax Rolls/Deeds to Locate People

There were a large number of Joneses living in Calloway County KY before Isaac’s clan arrived. The 1830 census of Calloway County found 15 Jones families with the householder’s first names including one each of the name Burrell, James, Charles and Stephen, two Thomas’s, three John’s and four William’s. These 15 Jones households contained 91 persons presumably with the name Jones and all together they accounted for 1.8% of Calloway’s total population of 5159.My approach to solving this monstrous genealogical problem was to identifying these Joneses using watercourses locations from tax rolls and section, township, and range location of deeds. This proved very useful as I tried to explain in my 1988 book, The Joneses of Kentucky’s Calloway Marshall Counties 1820 -1910.There were Joneses in the earliest records and yes, these same people continued to appear, generally on the same watercourse year after year as I proceeded forward in time searching the districts and counties as they were created and or renamed through the 1800s. The value of finding a name in one tax year, albeit important was made trivial by plotting that same person’s location on the map for many sequential years, decades, or a lifetime. This approach minimized errors in names, etc and enabled seeing the temporal and spatial settlement patterns that identified, segregated and distinguished the multiple Joneses with common first names.Thomas Jones and his family There were several Thomas Joneses in Calloway County in the 1830s but there was only one who 1st appeared on the 1835 tax rolls listed with 130 acres within the Tinsley Survey on Jonathan Creek (formerly Harlan’s Creek) at a $285 value plus four horses. This was Thomas Jones (1788 NC – >1873 ??) whom we agree was Isaac Jones’ oldest son. See below.

*Burrell was not listed on Clear Creek before 1842 and is included here because of his subsequent  appearance in Marshall County.

X^T Thomas’s 1835 listing was on Tinsley lands all others on Clear Creek.

On 11 May, 1835 this Thomas Jones bought land on Clear Creek from a man named James Pickeral Jr. The exact location of the land was the S E quarter of Section 2, Township 3 N, Range 5 E. He began paying taxes on this Clear Creek land in Calloway in 1836 and continued to do so until the first tax roll of Marshall County was created in 1843. Thereafter he paid taxes on the same acreage in Marshall County. Thomas’s original homestead on Clear Creek was situated roughly 1.5 miles north of the Tinsley lands.
His father, Isaac Jones and all his brothers, sisters and spouses resided on Tinsley lands or nearby plots to the south in Calloway County. Only Burrell was included in the table above for reference not because he lived there in those years but because he transiently made the Marshall County Tax rolls in 1846-1849, see below.

Mustard color indicates Marshall, Yellow Calloway Tax Rolls. Burrell Jones was listed for 1843-1844 in Calloway County (yellow) where as he was listed for the years 1846-49 on Clear Creek in Marshall County.  The green background marks ITJ’s assuming TJ tax profile for 1845.  In 1847, ITJ is listed for that one year only on Calloway’s rolls (X* in yellow). The 1853-1858 Calloway County Tax rolls (purple background color) are missing. 

The X marks above and in the previous table mean the person lived there that year. This data is simplified to an X from a large data base of unpublished material. The data bank consists of each tax year’s entry reduced to watercourse, acres of land,  land value, number of slaves owned, number of horses, number of pole tax and number of children (without regard to their ages).  Over time each person’s data formed a profile or finger print that typically changed very slowly if at all. It should be noted that it took a few years to identify the smallest referenced watercourse (i.e. the most specific location). For example in some years Thomas was listed on Jonathan Creek, in others it was Clear Creek. That doesn’t mean he moved, it reflects specificity of location.      

William D. Jones The next Jones to appear on Clear Creek tax rolls was William D. Jones (WDJ). He 1^st appeared in 1837 in the tax rolls of Calloway near Isaac and Thomas Jones, but by 1838 his location was clearly on Clear Creek near Thomas Jones and he was typically taxed on 70 acres. In 1843 WDJ began to be taxed on 160 acres on Clear Creek land and his tax profile remained stable through 1848. But, from 1837 until 1848 there were no records indicating he had purchased land in either Calloway or Marshall County. This suggests that in that interval someone was giving him increasing control of family land, perhaps by lease or perhaps deeding him land for which the deeds were never recorded or have been lost. Both the geospatial and temporal settlement pattern and WDJ’s increasing tax base without recorded land deeds is a strong basis to consider that Thomas was his father.

Post 1848 he was involved in 30 additional Marshall County land transactions and by the 1860’s he owned all of section 2 where Thomas had originally settled and the adjacent section 35 to the north in Township 4, north, Range 5 East. At one point he owned almost as much land as did Isaac Jones at his peak.

James L Jones In 1841 a man name James L Jones (JLJ) began to be listed nearby to Thomas and WDJ in the Calloway County tax rolls. Originally he paid only pole tax. Beginning in 1843 with formation of Marshall County JLJ is listed there and by 1844 he was being taxed on 30 acres of land on Clear Creek and this tax profile continued until 1858. Never the less, his first recorded land purchase was on 26 February 1852 when he was deeded 30 acres of land by Thomas and Martha A Jones. Thus he paid taxes on the same 30 acres both before and after owning the land which suggests a familiar scenario; Thomas was sharing or gifting land with JLJ like he had done for WDJ.

Isaac T Jones In 1844 ITJ appears on the tax roll for pole tax, no land and one horse adjacent to Thomas Jones on Clear Creek in Marshall County. The next year Thomas is missing from the tax roll and ITJ is listed on the tax roll with Thomas’s profile, that being 147 acres of land valued at $220, 2 horses and three children. In 1846 Thomas is back paying tax on this same 147 acre profile and ITJ’s profile returns to no land, 1 pole tax and one horse. The fact ITJ “stood-in” for Thomas on the 1845 Marshall Tax roll cements a close relationship, likely that of father and son.  

Joshua J Jones In 1846 another new Jones appears on the Marshall Tax rolls on Clear Creek near Thomas. The new person was Joshua J Jones (JJJ) who is taxed on only one horse. In 1848 he begins to pay pole tax and in the 1850 census is found living with his likely brother WDJ. In fact all of the above except ITJ can be found living close together in the 1850 census and ITJ was a short distance away in Calloway County living with his cousin Nancy Clarentine Jones and her husband H Z Hawkings.

In 1854, JJJ marries Nancy C Morris and continues to appear per usual on the Clear Creek tax rolls until 1859 when for the first time he pays tax on land. It’s worth noting he paid land taxes even before the date on his first recorded land deed. In the 1860 census Joshua’s new family is found adjacent to Wm D Jones’ family. What a tight nit relationship.  

Thomas Newton Jones (1838 KY - 1894 KY) & Archilles J Jones (1840 KY - 1924 KY) made their first appearance in the Marshall County Tax Rolls on Clear Creek next to their father Wm D “Button” Jones in 1860. Their appearance corresponded with the boys reaching the age of emancipation and with the recording of two deeds in which WDJ gifted 160 acres to each of them for the “Love and Affection he had for his son” (s).

All together these facts suggest;

(1)        Since each of these men, WDJ, JLJ, ITJ and JJJ appeared on Clear Creek adjacent to Thomas Jones (the original settler) near their age of emancipation and in sequential order of their age makes a strong argument that Thomas Jones was the father of these younger Joneses.

(2)       The peculiar growth in the tax base of William D and JLJ over time without land acquisition by deed reinforces this idea of fatherly gifting to their sons.

(3)       In James’s case a proven delayed transfer of land to him from Thomas is certainly indicative that Thomas was his father.

(4)       The 1845 tax records in which Thomas is replaced by ITJ for that one year suggests that the father placed trust in his young son.

(5)       The last two Joneses to appear on Clear Creek in this time frame where Thomas N Jones and Archilles J Jones. Since they have been proven to be sons of William D “Button” Jones their timely appearance at this location at this point in their lives confirms that father to son gifting of land was a customary pattern of behavior in this Jones family.

No evidence Thomas Jones’ family related to nearby Joneses There were three other Jones families within five miles of the Clear Creek area that that do not appear to be related to the Isaac Jones family despite the fact some had similar first names to members of Isaac’s clan.

Two of these “other” Joneses were brothers; William B Jones 1820 NC – 1864 KY and John D Jones 1823 TN -- 1884 KY. Interestingly, they married the Parrish sisters with William B’s marriage taking place in Obion County Tennessee a location that is both off the pathway and with later timing than that followed west by the Isaac-Thomas’s clan. 

The older brother appeared in the Marshall Tax rolls in 1846 and the younger one in the 1849 Marshall Tax rolls, both settling on Cool Creek. Cool Creek is in the Tennessee River watershed roughly 2 plus miles east of where Thomas and his sons lived. 

These brothers did not interact in weddings, deeds, etc with the Isaac-Thomas clan. After William B Jones dies in 1864, his younger brother moves to the opposite end of the County.

The third Jones family nearby was that of John Ned Jones (1815 SC -- 1882 KY); his place of birth suggests no relation to the Isaac Jones clan. John Ned Jones lived roughly five miles west on a different watershed and had no interaction with the Isaac-Thomas Jones clan.

Thus tracing these Joneses both forward and backward in time yields nothing to suggest they were related to Isaac’s clan.

James L Jones moves to Rough Creek in 1859 After an 18 year run living next to Thomas Jones and his brothers on Clear Creek James purchased 140 acres on Rough Creek (another tributary of Jonathan Creek) and moved approximately three miles northwest. When James moved away from Clear Creek he did not disengage from family affairs, like weddings, etc indicating that blood lines were thick.

In contrast neither James or Thomas nor his other sons ever participated in marriages or land deeds with the three unrelated Jones families.  The only notations in Marshall County records that mingle the names were order book entries indicating neighbor groups that were responsible for construction or maintenance of roads in District 1.