Do you know the legal description of any real estate your ancestor owned in the United States? The legal description precisely states where your ancestor’s property is located, such as:
- Lot 5 in block 2 of section 8 of Wilson’s Addition to the City of Warsaw, Illinois
- The north half of section 2 in township 4 north of the 5th principal meridian.
Some land indexes are organized geographically. Tax records are organized geographically and other records are organized in this fashion as well.
In upcoming tips we’ll have ideas on finding that legal description.
3 Responses
Legal land descriptions are important to me and I look forward to more suggestions.
I recently found the legal description of my great-great-grandfather’s farm in the probate file for his estate, but I’m not really sure what to do with it. Is there a way to use this description to locate what is on that piece of land today?
A modern plat book would indicate who owned the property if it is still rural. We’ll have a longer blog post about this on my Rootdig blog in a day or so.