Rent To Own: A Land And Tax Record Quandary

With no surviving Ohio censuses from 1800 or 1810, locating and tracking the movements of Thomas Kirk was a challenge.

Fortunately, land and tax records filled the records gap, and helped me pinpoint my fifth great-grandfather's location.

But the records also raised an interesting question about property ownership, which may hint at a family relationship between grantor and grantee.

The Land Indenture
During a visit this month to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, I found a copy of the January 1812 land indenture between John and Margret Beard (grantors) and Thomas Kirk (grantee).

Thomas paid the Beards $175 for 100 acres in Licking Township, Licking County, Ohio. The property was "situated in the fourth section, first township and twelfth range United States Military lands..."

January 1812 Land Indenture Between John and Margret Beard and Thomas Kirk

This land purchase - Thomas' first documented acquisition in Licking County - indicated that he was in the area by 1812.

Could I refine my timeline and determine whether he was in the area before the land indenture? Area tax records did exactly that.

Tax Trails
Thomas appeared in the County's 1812 tax records, indicating he was in the area in 1811.

1812 Licking Township, Licking County, Ohio Tax Record

Curiously, Thomas paid $1.00 tax for 100 acres in Range 12, Township 1, and Section 4 - the exact same land description for the property he bought from the Beards. The tax record also attributed original ownership of the land to a man named Samuel Dick.

John Beard appeared in the same tax record, paying $1.96 tax for 196 acres in the same area - Range 12, Township 1, and Section 4. The land's original proprietor was also identified as Samuel Dick.

What was not specified for either plot of land was the specific lot number. My theory is that John Beard owned many acres in the range, township and section - all of it originally owned by Samuel Dick. John sold a portion - 100 acres - to Thomas in 1812.

But how long had Thomas Kirk lived on the land, and was he living on the land prior to ownership as merely a renter or guest of relatives? The records have me stumped.

Ownership vs. Rentership
Thomas appeared on the same land in Licking County's 1811 tax records. In the record's column denoting the type of title, his ownership was marked as "deed".

What does that mean? Did he in fact own the property prior to the 1812 land indenture, or was he renting to own?

1811 Licking Township, Licking County, Ohio Tax Record

Thomas appeared in Licking County's tax records each year back to 1809, living on the same land, with the title consistently noted as a "deed".

In fact, Thomas was on the same property several years earlier, pre-dating the existence of Licking County, which was formed in 1808 from Fairfield County.

Fairfield County tax records in 1808, 1807, and 1806 showed Thomas paid taxes for 100 acres of land in Licking Township: Range 12, Township 1, Section 4.

The 1806 tax enumeration is among my most prized genealogy finds because it is the earliest record I've found for Thomas Kirk. It suggests that he was in the area by 1805.

1806 Licking Township, Fairfield County, Ohio Tax Record

In 1806, John Beard paid taxes on 300 acres for property located in Range 12 and Township 1. This  confirmed my theory that he owned a larger portion of land in the area, and may have split it into smaller tracts and sold it for profit.

For the record, FamilySearch has digitized Fairfield County's land grantor and grantee indexes (dating to 1804), but I don't see John Beard, Samuel Dick, or Thomas Kirk mentioned in relation to the property in question.

The Family Deal
What should I make of Thomas paying taxes between 1806 and 1811 for land that he officially purchased in 1812?

Was it possible that he was renting to own?

Or was it possible that family cut him a good deal and allowed him to live on the land with the understanding that he pay taxes?

Some family histories state that John Beard's wife was Margaret Kirk (born in 1758), and there is speculation that she was a sister or aunt to Thomas Kirk (born in 1778). I have not been able to find documentation to corroborate this theory.

Would a family relationship matter when it came to matters of tax and ownership? Or did land ownership laws of the time stipulate that property residents - regardless of ownership status - were liable for the taxes?

Any tax and land specialists out there who can weigh in?

Tracking Ancestor Movements: Pining For A 19th Century Ankle Bracelet

Have you ever struggled to pin down an ancestor's movements?

Do you ever wonder, "when did he go from here to there?" Surely I'm not the only genealogist who wishes he could go back in time with an ankle bracelet.

This is the case for my fifth great-grandfather Thomas Kirk.

At some point shortly after the turn of the 19th century, he moved from his purported birth state of Virginia to Ohio where he raised his family, died, and was buried.

Establishing A Timeline of Events
The location and date of Thomas' marriage to Sarah Bonar are unknown, but it's believed to have occurred in approximately 1804 in Ohio County, Virginia where she was born (now West Virginia).

To complicate matters further, even Bonar family histories lost track of Sarah once she married Thomas. The wonderful Bonar Genealogy published by Dorothy Elizabeth Rine Brown in 1969 (and made available online by her son) includes lengthy portraits of Sarah's siblings, but only a few sparse lines for her:

"Sarah Bonar, m ______ Kirk. The records of the late Tabitha Bonar Wilson say that Sarah "Sallie" married a man by the name of Kirk, and that they lived at Captina, Belmont Co, Ohio."

The Bonar family didn't even remember the first name of the man she married! Clearly, the Kirk family was the Bermuda Triangle of documented family history.

Sarah married Thomas, moved to Ohio, and slipped away. However, not without that gleaming geographic clue: according to the Bonar genealogy they initially settled in Captina, Belmont County, Ohio.

I have no idea where the town of Captina is today, but Belmont County is just across the Ohio River from Ohio County, Virginia.

Losing My Census
Frustratingly, census enumerations provide limited help in this case. Census records do not exist for Ohio before 1820, and the situation in Virginia isn't much better.

Virginia's 1790 census is missing and the 1800 enumeration survives for only two counties, and neither is Ohio County - where I might expect to find the Bonars and perhaps a courting Thomas Kirk.

Censuses do provide an interesting indirect clue. Thomas and Sarah's eldest child, Vachel Kirk, was born in Ohio according to the 1880, 1900, and 1910 enumerated responses of his three children, positioning Thomas' family in the Buckeye state by the time Vachel was born in approximately 1805.

Here a Sister, There a Sister
When I read that Thomas and Sarah began married life in Belmont County, I was reminded of another connection to that area.

I've been eyeing a couple - Hugh and Ann Ford - who were Thomas' neighbors in the final years of his life in Licking County, Ohio. Ann's maiden name was Kirk and she was one year older than Thomas.

According to a biography of their son Hugh Jr., Hugh and Anna (Kirk) Ford lived in Kirkwood Township, Belmont County, Ohio in 1815 and "remained until April 1832" when they moved to Monroe Township in Licking County.

Thomas bought 171 acres in Monroe Township beginning in 1838. Was it to be nearer his sister and brother-in-law?

Before that move, Thomas lived on land that he purchased in 1812 in Licking Township. Curiously, he appeared on tax records before that year. In fact, he paid taxes on land in Licking Township as early as 1806, suggesting that he was in the area as early as 1805.

If he was paying tax on land in 1806, does that mean he owned land at that time? Would a resident have paid tax on land they were just renting? This may suggest that there's a pre-1812 land record I need to track down, perhaps in Fairfield County (Before Licking County was established in 1808, Licking Township fell within the boundaries of Fairfield County).

The likelihood that Thomas was in Licking Township by 1805 reminded me of yet another person of interest.

A published history of Licking County included a handful of biographies of prominent citizens. One of those was for Isaiah Geiger who was the grandson of Anthony and Mary Geiger. Mary's maiden name was Kirk and she was about six years older than Thomas. Was she another sister?

Isaiah's biography noted, "His grandfather emigrated to this county from Virginia in 1805, when his father [Jacob Geiger] was six weeks old, and first settled in Licking township."

Did Thomas travel to Licking Township with his sister and brother-in-law in 1805? That theory would fit with my working timeline.

Now the hard work continues to prove or disprove, and without the help of a tracking device...