5 thoughts on “Tracing Your Colonial Ancestors in Virginia”
I didn’t realize that early Botetourt County was what is now sw Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky. I have been able to see my ancestral families geographical proximity.
I didn’t see the name Whitten or Witten along the Clinch River area. They were early scouts in the area. Any reason why they were not on the tithables?
Hi Rachel, There are many reasons why they might not appear. Botetourt was expansive (in fact, it extended to include what is modern-day Kentucky at one point), but other counties were taken from it over time. It’s possible your Whitten/Wittens lived along the Clinch River in an area that was taken from Botetourt. It’s also possible they simply were not there during the period this volume covers which is relatively short (1770-1777). They also may have moved away, died, or were missed.
You may also want to search the original tax records yourself. With a free FamilySearch account, you can use their Full Text Search tool, or search page by page for your Whittens: https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/koha:753667 The icon that looks like a page will take you to a full-text search. However, a quick look for Whitten and Witten returned no results, so a page-by-page look might be warranted. If you still don’t find them, I’d attempt to narrow in very specifically to see if the area they were in was taken by another county—Fincastle (formed in 1772) and Washington (formed in 1776) are possibilities since the Clinch River ran through these areas.
I didn’t realize that early Botetourt County was what is now sw Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky. I have been able to see my ancestral families geographical proximity.
Thanks so much for sharing this! The maps help tremendously!!
Thank you
I didn’t see the name Whitten or Witten along the Clinch River area. They were early scouts in the area. Any reason why they were not on the tithables?
Hi Rachel, There are many reasons why they might not appear. Botetourt was expansive (in fact, it extended to include what is modern-day Kentucky at one point), but other counties were taken from it over time. It’s possible your Whitten/Wittens lived along the Clinch River in an area that was taken from Botetourt. It’s also possible they simply were not there during the period this volume covers which is relatively short (1770-1777). They also may have moved away, died, or were missed.
The Newberry Library has some great tools for studying the boundary changes: https://publications.newberry.org/ahcb/pages/Virginia.html
You may also want to search the original tax records yourself. With a free FamilySearch account, you can use their Full Text Search tool, or search page by page for your Whittens: https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/koha:753667 The icon that looks like a page will take you to a full-text search. However, a quick look for Whitten and Witten returned no results, so a page-by-page look might be warranted. If you still don’t find them, I’d attempt to narrow in very specifically to see if the area they were in was taken by another county—Fincastle (formed in 1772) and Washington (formed in 1776) are possibilities since the Clinch River ran through these areas.