Tabitha (White) Hill / Riley - Confused

We get this misinformation from time to time. "Tithable" means taxable and nothing more than that. It has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with ethnicity.

What it probably does mean is that Thomas Riley was over sixteen years old in that assessment year, and therefore old enough to count as taxable.

Taxes, incidentally, were charged to and paid by the head of household.

Discussion of Somerset County tax lists here: https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/coagser/c1800/c1812/html/c1812_intro.html

I'm always confused by the tithable thing because sometimes it means it's just a regular tax and other times it's a tax on a person's status. I don't know how to determine which a person is and am always puzzled how others seem to be able to determine which it is.

Thanks for that link. I like that it included this information:

Murray and Lockwood clarified that "as foreigners coming here on account of trade [we] do presume we may be reasonably excluded[,] the like impositions being never offerd to us in any place we have been in." [ 10 ] The court agreed and discharged them from paying the taxes. These examples indicate, however, that if constables or inhabitants were uncertain about the rules, individuals could be included in the lists who technically should not be.

Changing perceptions about the status of women, especially mulatto and black women, also affected the accuracy of the tax lists and the comparability of the taxable population at the beginning of the period with that at mid-century. According to custom, the taxable population excluded free women. Yet free women do occasionally slip into lists, apparently because individual constables decided that free women who worked in the fields constituted taxable labor. In particular, free mulatto and black women appear in the lists with increasing frequency despite their status as free women. The inclusion of these women did not pass uncontested, which indicates that case-by-case decisions dictated whether free women were included in the lists, rather than directives from the county court or the Provincial Assembly. Two examples illustrate differences in perception about the status of women of color. In 1713 the court received a petition from "Sambo negroe" who informed the court that "yr petitioner hath been sett free by his master Mr. Peter Dowty ? his wife being sett free [also] craves yr worships [for her] to be tax free as being now a free woman." [ 11 ] The court recognized this change of status and ordered that Sambo's wife be tax free for the future. But by the 1740s, at least in some cases, constables regarded free mulattoes and African Americans as taxable regardless of gender. In 1743, for example, George McKean, the constable of Nanticoke hundred, noted at the bottom of his list that

there is two wemon of a dark complection lives at the head of Tipquin [Creek] that will not [give themselves in;] they are full as dark as most mallatos[;] they are of the breed of old Fortune[;] and Robt. Game never gave his wife to me since I have been constable she being dark skyned too.

A subsequent note clarifies that "the two wemon [sic] above named refuse to give themselfs in for taxables" and presumably did not pay to McKean the appointed tax. [ 12 ] Apparently, for McKean, the relevant criteria for the taxation of women was skin color, not enslavement.

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And the reason I liked reading that is because I've seen a case or two where a person was taken to court because they refused to pay a tax on their ethnicity. But again, most I come across in genealogy that are listed as tithable and state that's due to ethnicity don't always have court information to give details confirming that determination.

As a general guideline, unless the tithable list says something specific about a person's ethnicity, they're a bog-standard Anglo male over fifteen years old.

I have seen people try to claim that *one* comment on *one* person "must therefore" apply to *all* persons in the list (or below that point, or other "special argument"). It gets ridiculous when the other listed persons are of *known* Anglo immigrant extraction, or known Anglo immigrants themselves.

I think we've got a mess-up on the upper Keyser lines. Specifically, Elizabeth Keyser claimed to have two husbands and a DIVORCE (which would have been a MAJOR MAJOR SCANDAL) in Massachusetts - not Maryland.

Divorce in Puritan Massachusetts? I don't think so!

According to the Miles Files, Tabitha's mother was Sarah Keyser, daughter of George Keyser (immigrant, parentage not given) and unidentified wife. (And, Tabitha herself was a twin to her sister Priscilla.)

Other unknowns include whether George Keyser immigrated with his entire family (which would mean they were all British), or whether he acquired a wife after immigrating as a single young man, and whether there was a stop-over in Accomack/Northampton County, VA before pushing on up the Delmarva.

Maven, thanks for that additional info on Tabitha's parentage. There's info in your last post that is new to me. And, yes, that's what I was encountering, a tithable person said to have been ethnic but showing English parents. Things weren't adding up.

Kicked Sarah Keyser White off the Massachusetts family and made a new father for her: George Keyser, of Somerset County MD

Not a lot is known about him, and nothing at all about his wife, which means if you want to think she was Native American, there's no way to disprove it short of mtDNA testing (which may not be conclusive either).

Asking for a Zombie cleanup on Sarah's relatives.

Thanks for all your help, Maven. It's not that I believe she was NA. That's the point I was questioning since it had been stated her son was tithed on her because of her ethnicty. I was seeking clarification, if there was any. We didn't get that resolved, but I feel it was good that at least some of her family info got cleaned up in the process. :)