The 1836 property tax list for Jackson Township in Coshocton County, Ohio, contains an entry for Jonas Rampley. It’s clearly Jonas as the first name on the record. There’s little doubt that it says Jonas.

And yet, it is not Jonas.

At least I’m 99% certain it isn’t. James Rampley is shown as owning that property on tax lists before and after 1836. There are no records anywhere for a Jonas Rampley during the time period. James had no middle name.

It seems like a simple copy error.

The records that were microfilmed and later converted to digital images at FamilySearch (and from which this image was made) were not the original tax records. If one carefully reads the description of the records in the card catalog and if one looks at the records themselves, it is clear that the records are a  report to the Ohio State Auditor.

In other words the record used to create this digital image is a handwritten transcription of the county’s tax records.

To use current genealogical terminology, the book used to create this image was a derivative record. It was not the original record. And what I’m using is a derivative copy of that derivative record.

It is not to difficult to see that the transcriber of the record simply got “off” when copying the first names. The next landowner on the list had the first name of Jonas.

Copying thousands of names…it’s possible gets copied incorrectly.