Volume 13 , Issue 23

General Land Office Records Assist Researchers

Genealogists searching for land records of their ancestors often use the General Land Office records, www.glorecords.blm.gov, which indexes public land sales in various states and images of the original land grant certificate. These records can provide important genealogical clues, with records often providing the former address of the purchaser.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), General land Office (GLO) Records Automation web site provides live access to Federal land conveyance records for the Public Land States, including image access to more than five million Federal Land title records issued between 1820 and the present. They also have images related to survey plats and filed notes, dating back to 1810. Because of organization of documents in the GLO collection, this site does NOT currently contain every Federal title record issued for the Public Land States.

Survey Plats & Field
Survey plats are part of the official record of a cadastral survey. A cadastral survey is a survey which creates, marks, defines, retraces or re-establishes the boundaries and subdivisions of Federal Lands of the United States. It is a graphic drawing of the boundaries involved with a particular survey project, and contains the official acreage to be used in the legal description.

Field Notes are the narrative record of the cadastral survey and are written in tabular format and contain the detailed descriptions of entire survey process including the instrumentation and procedures utilized, calling all physical evidence evaluated int he survey process, and listing all of the individuals who participated in the work.

Land Patents -Federal Land Patents offer researchers a course of information on the initial transfer of land titles format he Federal government to individuals. It also verifies title transfer, which will allow the researcher to associate an individual (Patentee, Assignee, Warrantee, Widow, or Heir) with a specific location (Legal Land Description) and time (Issue Date).

Land Status Records - Land Status Records are used by BLM Western State Offices to document the ongoing state of a township's Federal and private land regarding title, lease, rights, and usage. These documents include Master Title Plats, which are a composite of all Federal surveys for a township. Other Land Status Records include Use Plts, Historical indices, and Supplemental Plats.

You can search by document type, by location or by identifier. To try this above link out for myself I searched by Document Type in the State of Okalahoma, any county, and the Lastname MCGILL. That brought up a listing of those with the lastname of MCGILL. Three in Woods county (I clicked on 24-26-16, Constance MCGILL); one in Garfield county; and two in Canadian county. You can then see Patent Details, Patent Image and Related Documents.

When I clicked the "Related Documents" tab it brought up another listing showing previous owners of Section 24-26N-16WIM that dated back to 5/25/1907, showing a Homestead Certificate #7095 (MV-0601-238) for PATTEE, Joseph E. (Jr.), owning the West half of the North East quarter and the North half of the South East quarter of Section 24-26N-16WIM, containing 160 Acres. It was signed by T. Roosevelt by F. M. McKean, secretary. Recorder of the General Land Office at that time was H. W. Sanford. Let me see if I can give you a visual location of that property. It is on the Northeast corner of Highway 14 (runs North and South to Waynoka) and what we call the "crooked bridge road" that runs east and west (one mile north of the Avard blacktop road, about 10 miles North of Waynoka, Oklahoma).Does that help in the visual location?

BLM Land Search of MCGILL, 24-26N-16WIM, OK. See what you can find on your ancestry land holdings.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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