The early census records of Virginia were destroyed and so the early reports are based on existing tax lists. In the 1790 census, tax records were used to reconstruct this census which was destroyed by fire. By 1810, things are okay again.

Although the Southern Putman line came from England to Virginia in 1647, most had spread south and west by or shortly after the Revolution. From 1800 up until the 1900s, there were basically two families that grew and spread out in the Northwestern and Western parts of Virginia.

John Putnam came from Massachusetts after serving in the Revolution. He settled in Bath County. Bath County is in the middle of the State right on the West Virginia Border. Parts of the family spread out into neighboring Alleghany County and several moved west into West Virginia in the 1850s and 1860s. They settled in Doddridge and Ritchie Counties in the Northwestern part of the state.

The other English line was the Southern Putnam/Putman one that settled in Gloucester County Virginia and moved west. A couple of families passed through from the Carolinas into Kentucky and west, but the family of William Putnam and then Joseph Darnell Putnam settled in Fauquier County in the Northern Neck of Virginia. They later spread into Warren, Shenandoah and other Northern Counties and then by the 1860s into the middle of West Virginia in Gilmer, Braxton and a couple of other Counties.

Early on part of the German Putman family was in Hampshire County, which became part of West Virginia, but they moved to the Mid West by 1800. Later, other groups from the English families from New England and Dutch from New York came into the State.