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With tax season here, I thought it would be fun to see what we can get from IRS Tax Assessment Lists! First, a bit about the family I wanted to research. Three brothers, Guiseppe Daniel, Giacomo David, and Stefano Guiseppe Mariani, lived together at 1006 Dupont Street, which is now Grant Avenue (San Francisco’s Chinatown). Downstairs they had a store. Well, two of them, really. Guiseppe Daniel (GD as he went by in later years) had a high-end sundries and whatnot store and Stefano and his business partner had a furniture store. GD moved his store to two locations downtown and Stefano opened two hardware stores in the Mission District. What can we find in the IRS tax lists? By 1870, the house was owned by Victoria Barron and was a boarding house, so I knew my searches were for before 1870.
I pulled up all Marianis in the “U.S., IRS Tax Assessment Lists, 1862-1918” on Ancestry.com and here are the findings for “my” Mariani family:
If I hadn’t already known where they lived, this would have given me the address. This gave me a store name to check on for Stefano Mariani’s first foray into retail. And this also could have led me to the lawsuit that showed the falling out between Stefano and his business partner Camillo Steffani.
After mailing your check this illustrious tax week, go find out how much your ancestors were paying and enjoy the math! 😊
P.S. I used AI to find the image and a title for this article. I think it did well, but thought I’d share the other ideas for the title:
My ask: What is a funny title for an article about using tax records for genealogy?Some of AI’s ideas:
• Death and Taxes… and Your Great-Grandfather’s Debt
• Unearthing Your Ancestors, One Tax Form at a Time (Prepare for Boredom)
• Genealogy: It’s More Taxing Than You Think
• Taxing Tales: Finding Your Family in the Fiscal Files
• From W-2 to Who’s Who: The Surprising Secrets in Tax Records
• The Taxman Knows Best: Uncovering Your Family’s Finances (and Maybe More)
• Following the Money: A Genealogical Whodunit
• Tax Record Sleuth: Unraveling Your Family History Through Finances
• Accounted For: Finding Your Forebears in Financial Documents
• Let’s Get Fiscal: The Genealogist’s Guide to Financial Forensics
• Show Me the Money (and My Ancestors)!
• The Ledger Legacies: Finding Your Roots in Revenue
• Where There’s a Will, There’s a Tax Form (and Maybe a Cousin)
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