Several good reasons exist to use land records in your family history research. The most important ones are talked about below.
Revolutionary War Bounty Land Grants
The nine states that awarded bounty lands in their western reserves or on their western borders (directly affecting the future states of Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Ohio, and Tennessee) are Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia. (The basis for the Connecticut and Georgia awards, by the way, differ from the norm.)
The nine state governments created a patchwork of records, and it was therefore no easy task to create a master index. Typically, however, each entry in this index contains the name of the claimant, who is usually the veteran, the state of service, the rank held, the date of the record, and the acreage. Altogether about 35,000 names appear in the index, including duplicates. While the arrangement of matter is strictly alphabetical, there is also a separate index to heirs, representatives, and other assignees mentioned in the records.
Bounty and Donation Land Grants in British Colonial America
From Nova Scotia south to Florida, the British Crown awarded land to approximately 6,500 soldiers and sailors for service in the various colonial wars. Grants of land were generally made on the basis of rank, with veterans from colonies with no vacant lands sometimes taking up land in other colonies; certain Massachusetts soldiers receiving grants of land in Virginia, for example; or Virginia militiamen drawing land in Kentucky. Land grants provide the clues for such migrations, while other grants sometimes reveal group migrations from coastal settlements into the interior of the country.
All 6,500 soldiers known to have received land grants for their participation in the numerous conflicts with the French and their Indian allies, as well as in various colonial insurrections, are listed here with details of their place and dates of service, rank, military campaigns, location of bounty land grants and donation land grants, acreage, and, most importantly, assignment of title to heirs, relatives, and friends.
In family history research, no other records go farther back in time than land records, such as property tax lists, deed indexes, deeds themselves or real estate transactions. Land records are usually more complete than other records as well. A good example is the Doomsday Books, which are property tax lists from the 11th century. They are the earliest English records known that list the common farmer or tradesman by name.
In the United States land records were so important that after courthouse fires, of which there were many, land deed records were generally the first records reconstructed, if destroyed. This was common after the Civil War in states such as Georgia. A person counted his wealth on the land he owned, so it was important.
Around 90% of adult white males owned land before 1850. This means that land deeds and land grants are an excellent way to see if your ancestor was in a certain locality at a certain time. Almost all deeds are recorded at the county level courthouse where the land is located. People wanted the protection of a legal document so the buyers and the sellers of land were usually very anxious to make sure a deed was recorded. On the rare occasion some land may have been transferred privately and no deed recorded, but this was the exception (and almost impossible to trace).
If you are having trouble finding the name of a man’s wife, you may find it on land records, although many times you won’t get the last name. Dower Rights was a concept held over from England. These “rights” existed in the United States into the 19th century. Dower Rights entitled a widow to one-third of her husband’s estate when he died. This did not have to be specified in the husband’s will as it was common law and practice. But as a result of the dower rights concept a married women is usually mentioned in early land deeds because she had a legal interest in the land, if land was ever bought or sold by her husband. A little known fact is that a wife could veto the sale of her husband’s land due to her interest in the ownership. Some early court documents still exist that indicate the wife’s prevention of the sale of land, even though under English law, a woman could not own land in her own name.
Recent Comments