Special Announcement
Land records have you confused? We have the answer.
Reading the Deed Books: US Local Land Records for Genealogists
There are a lot of records your ancestor may have avoided being listed in. But if he bought or sold land, there was a record created to document that transfer and a copy of that record was probably made at the local court house. Even if your ancestor never bought or sold the land he owned, he may appear in local land records. Deeds are some of the most reliable records we have, and genealogists overlook them all the time.
This presentation covers the land records kept at the county and town level in the United States and the general structure and form of a deed itself along with land record terminology. We’ll talk about how the records are usually organized, how to use grantor and grantee indexes (and what to do when they fail you), and why the record you need might be sitting in a parent county formed fifty years earlier. Local land records are not just deeds, we’ll look at mortgages, releases, powers of attorney, and the land divisions that followed a death.
We’ll also spend time on what a deed can tell you beyond the sale itself. The legal phrasing often hides useful clues, and the details people skim past, like witnesses, neighbors, or a wife releasing her dower, can point to relatives and connections you didn’t know about. We will look at examples from a variety of US locations.
Searching these records can always be done onsite, but we will also talk about accessing them where possible via FamilySearch (including manual browsing and using full-text search where applicable).
You should be comfortable with basic research before signing up.
Handout and presentation included.
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