INTERNATIONAL INTERNET GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY UNIVERSITY

US LAND & PROPERTY RESEARCH

INTRODUCTION

This is a self-paced set of lessons on the basics of land and property research in the United States. This type of research is often daunting and somewhat intimidating to genealogists, especially those just beginning to encounter land grants, deeds and other forms of property acquisition and transfer. When you complete this course, you should know something about the history and evolution of land acquisition in the United States, the terminology associated with land transactions, where to look for records when researching in this field and what inferences may be drawn from such records. You will hopefully be able to move forward with your research with more confidence in your ability to understand and evaluate these types of records. Each lesson covers a particular segment of land and property research background and methodology. At the end of each lesson is a short exam and, in some lessons, an assignment which you should complete in order to test your comprehension of the contents of the lesson you have just finished. The answers for the exam and some comments on the assignments will be found at the beginning of the next lesson. If you find that you did not score well on the exam, or had difficulty with the assignment, you may wish to review the lesson again. Each month, on the third Sunday, an IRC conference will be held for those students wishing to participate in an on-line discussion of this subject.Contact the instructor for details. It is anticipated that sometime in 1998, an "advanced" course on US Land & Property Research will be added to the University cirriculum. The instructor is available for specific questions in an area in which a student may be having difficulty.
About your instructor...

Bill Utterback, a Certified Genealogist(sm), has more than 45 years experience in genealogical and historical research.He is the author of a number of articles and other works in the historical and genealogical arena. He has served as a consultant to the Smithsonian Institution and the Franklin D.Roosevelt Library and is a member of the National Genealogical Society, the American Historical Association, the Kentucky Historical Society, The Association of Professional Genealogists, and other county and state genealogical and historical societies. He resides in Amarillo, Texas.
LESSON I

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LAND ACQUISITION AND TRANSFER IN THE UNITED STATES
In reviewing the early history of land acquisition in the United States, this lesson will deal with those foreign nations who had property claims in America. We will not discuss the history of Native American land holdings in this course, except where such holdings were a part of lands purchased from, or ceded to, the United States by specific Native American nations.

Although there were some additional foreign powers which held small areas of property in what would become the United States(such as the Dutch), we will, in this lesson, look at the large holdings of France, Spain, England and Mexico.

Britain's forays into the New World began in 1585 with the expedition of Sir Walter Raleigh. Over a period of 200 years from that early settlement, the British left us many land records in the colonies which eventually became our early states. In the early years, the British granted charters to large land companies, which were essentially comprised of wealthy land speculators who resided in England. These land companies were vested with the authority to issue land grants to those individuals who were loyal to the crown. The crown ultimately controlled all of the lands in these huge charters, with the land companies acting as agents of the crown. Some of the more famous of these land companies were the London Company, Massachusetts Bay Company, Plymouth Company, Virginia Company and others. There were often disputes among these companies due to overlapping charters and altered boundries.

What types of records are available from this early British period? Probably the most valuable for the genealogist are crown grants and proprietor records. A proprietorship was responsible for the granting of lands from the charter, as agent for the charter(and therefore, for the crown). When these disbursements of land were made, the land itself was laid out in descriptive form in much the same way as later deeds, with landmarks and other prominent identifying data. Many of these records survive in one form or another, whether they be patents, surveys, warrants, or in some other form, and have been microfilmed and are available from various resource centers, such as the LDS Family History Library and others.

The genealogist who is researching in the Floridas should also be aware of the fact that headright grants were given in that area. A headright grant was one comprised of a certain amount of land(in this case 100 acres) given for the head of the household and an additional amount (50 acres in the Floridas) for each additional family member. There were five steps in the headright process: the application, the warrant for survey, the plat record, the testimony of supporting witnesses, and the patent. If you are not familiar with the term warrant, it is simply a legal direction to a surveyor, granting him the authority to proceed with the survey of the land in question. These headright grants were kept in a ledger and the contents are available on microfilm from the National Archives.

It is important, also, for the genealogist to be aware that there is another potential source of information exists in what have come to be known as loyalist claims. In the Revolutionary War, the United States confiscated lands belonging to those that were felt to be loyal to the British government. The British government tried to compensate the loyalists for their losses, and, in 1783, the British established the American Claims Commission to administer the claims. These claims are now in the Public Record Office in Surrey, England. There are several noteworthy indexes of these records in the United States and Canada, with the Library of Congress as one repository where microfilm of these indexes is held.

When researching British land transactions, the genealogist should work in reverse, i.e., begin with the current administrative body responsible for the land in which you have an interest, and move backward in time from there. Since the areas of land holdings will become larger as you move back in time, it will be necessary to consult many sources to obtain a complete picture of the land ownership over the past 300 years.

Moving now to Spain, we know that it was the first foreign nation to claim land ownership in the North American continent. By the late 1600's, Spain laid claim to much of what would become the central and southwestern United States, as well as parts of Texas, New Mexico, California and the area of the Floridas.

Early Spanish land grants, i.e., prior to the year 1763, exist in small numbers, but are primarily connected with lands granted to soldiers, and there is little of genealogical value in most of these very early documents. However, beginning in 1763, Spain began keeping careful records of its land transactions, with several copies made of each document, one of which was sent to the Spanish archives in Seville. The Spanish Land Grant Files, as well as records of memorials (granted in the Floridas) and other Spanish records can be found at the Florida State Archives, as well as the Family History Center and the National Archives. Spanish Land Grants often will show such items as the acreage of the land, name of the original grantee and the current claimant, surveyor's reports, and other data. Spanish records for other states, such as Louisiana, are often contained in ancillary collections, such as the Spanish Judicial Records(in the case of Louisiana). In addition, the single most used reference source for all Spanish land grants is the work entitled, American State Papers: Public Lands, Volume I. This work makes reference to most Spanish land claims prior to 1837. An excellent index of the claimants noted in this volume has been compiled by Phillip McMullin in his work, Grassroots of America.

The French held a large amount of territory in North America, which underwent a series of transfers between foreign governments over the years, but we are familiar with it from our reading of history as "The Louisiana Purchase". For genealogists purposes, you should be aware that there are some French land records found scattered among the Spanish documents, since they interacted over the years and overlapped each other in settling some of the lands. The Superior Council Records are the primary source of information on the French land granting practices. This collection holds everything from mortgages to marriage contracts, civil and land suits, and other valuable information. The coverage of these records is restricted primarily to the areas that we know today as Louisiana, inasmuch as this area was the primary settlement ground for the French. The Superior Council Records are available on microfilm at Tulane University and the Family History Center.

Mexico, by 1821, claimed lands in the present states of Texas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, California and Utah. The Mexicans, especially in Texas, were prolific in granting lands, often in the form of a rancho, which was a grant over 1000 acres. They also used the headright system in Texas and in California. In Texas, references are made to empressario grants, which were large tracts given to land speculators to colonize entire towns. Records which are available concerning Mexican grants include the Spanish Archives, covering lands in California in the period 1833-1845. Spanish and English versions are available on microfilm from the Family History Library and the California State Archives. In Texas, the Spanish Archives is a collection of nearly 70 volumes which contain records of empressario grants, mission grants and individual grants. They have been indexed and are available at the Texas General Land Office.

This brief history brings us to the point in time at which the United States came into existence. Future lessons will deal with the organization of state lands versus federal lands, how land was granted in these two systems, bounty lands, and how the "metes and bounds" system differs from the Township & Range approach.
Lesson One Review Examination

  • Name the four foreign nations who held vast amounts of land in the United States in the period 1500-1840.
  • Explain the "headright system" of granting land.
  • Explain what constitutes a "loyalist claim" and where the original records of these claims are now held.
  • Under the British rule, what task did a "proprietorship" perform?
  • To what geographical area do most of the French land records pertain?
  • Name the record collection which details Mexican land transactions in California.

Answers to the questions in this exam will appear at the beginning of Lesson II.
Proceed to Lesson II
Contact the instructor

(c)Copyright 1997, 1998, 1999 by Bill Utterback, CG