1812 Voter List, Jackson County, Tennessee

Ancestry.com has two tax lists labelled Jackson County, Tennessee 1803 and Blount County, Tennessee 1805.  Large chunks of these lists are precisely the same.  So which is correct?


To be more precise, the "Blount 1805" list consists of 21 images.  Images 12 through 20 are the focus here.  The images before image 12 really are Blount 1805.  Note that these images are obviously photocopies of an original, with "Blount Co, 1805" written in different handwriting at the top of each page.  "Blount Co" is written in block letters, unlike the list itself in cursive.  Handwritten block letters were almost never used in the early 1800s.  Besides the "Blount Co 1805" added to one of the lists, there is no indication of when or where the lists were taken.

The "Jackson 1803" list consists of 19 images, and image 11 through 19 are the focus.  The images before image 11 are really Jackson 1803.

So, "Blount 1805" images 12 through 20 are precisely the same as "Jackson 1803" images 11 through 19.  The handwriting is the same, the content is the same, etc. 

A little research reveal that the people on this list really were from Jackson Co, TN.  This list has nothing to do with Blount Co, TN.  However, this list was not from 1803.

The answer lies in what Ancestry.com calls the Jackson County, Tennessee 1812 list.  It is just 3 images, and is really just the recapitulation of the list.  It shows it was really even a tax list, but a list of person in Jackson Co, TN entitled to vote in 1812.  Which means it was more or less a list of white males over 21.  The recapitulation, or summary, has a list of districts by the enumerator, and the number of eligible voters in each.  The names of the enumerators, the order in which they appear, and the total number of eligible voters for each, matches precisely with  "Blount 1805" images 12 through 20 and "Jackson 1803" images 11 through 19.  The only thing of note is that "Blount 1805" and "Jackson 1803" only go through the first 7 of the 12 enumerators.  I don't where the lists are for the last 5 enumerators.

So, sections of the lists called "Jackson 1803"and "Blount 1805" are slightly more than half of the Jackson Co, TN 1812 list of eligible voters.