Family:Thomas Buckner and Rachel Unknown (2)

This family can be reconstructed from Halifax Co. VA personal property tax lists. Thomas Sr. first appears in 1785 with 1 titheable and then intermittently until 1792 when he has two titheables. In 1795, the list notes that this extra titheable is his son. In 1796, the number of titheables goes up to 3, and the 1797 list explicitly calls these sons. In 1798, this drops to 2, and "Ellet" Buckner appears for the first time, which is probably the point at which Aylett reached 21, 6 years after first becoming titheable. Phillip first appears listed next to Thomas in 1802, at which time Thomas' titheable count drops to 1, and this is roughly consistent with Phillip turning 21 in 1802 and 16 in 1796, so we can tentatively put Aylett's birth year at around 1776 or 1777 and Phillip's at around 1780 or 1781. Thomas Sr.'s last appearance is in 1806, after which his apparent widow Rachel appears intermittently, until 1814. In 1815, she is replaced by an entry for "Thomas Buckner Est." so she had probably died resulting in the final division of the estate (this was common when the widow usually inherited a life interest). Thomas Buckner Jr. appears occasionally in later lists. He may be the same Thomas Buckner who was enumerated in nearby Rockingham Co. NC in 1800, though the lack of a clear sequence of tax lists for him makes it hard to estimate his age. The analysis is complicated by the appearance of another Buckner family in the same county at the same time, the family of Anthony Buckner who died in 1780. Fortunately, Anthony's will survives so we can identify his widow Amey and sons William, Anthony, and Elisha and distinguish them from Thomas Buckner's family.

Most of the evidence suggests that they lived in the north part of the county, near Coles Ferry. They seem to have disappeared from Halifax Co. after 1815.