Land Records

I haven't posted in a while because we've been busy working on home improvements and traveling for the holidays, but today I started doing research over a piece of land for a new client. He's interested in learning about the history behind that particular piece of land so he can surprise a friend with the information. I have never done land research before, but I have learned quite a bit from lectures, classes, etc on where I would need to go for information, so I am pretty excited to add this type of research to my repertoire.

From what I already know about researching land records, I know I can find a lot at the county courthouse that the land is in, but I want to have some more information before I call them. So the first thing I did, of course, was use Google Maps to get an idea of where this land was at. Doing this at the beginning made my research easier later on.

The first actual land record website that I looked at today was the Bureau of Land Management: General Land Office of Records. This proved to be an incredibly useful website! It was a little overwhelming at first because I wasn't as familiar with land records as with genealogy records, but once I got going I unearthed quite a bit. Once I found what section of the township the land was in, it was very easy to find out who the first land owner was and when they purchased that piece of land. In addition, I was also able to find all the first residents for that township. And lastly, I discovered that the piece of land I'm researching was put up for sale during the Land Act of 1820 so that was interesting.

The second website that I looked up was the Kansas Memories Digital Archives that is sponsored by the Kansas State Historical Society. Since the land is in Kansas, this was a logical choice. Using the digital archives, I was able to quickly find a 1913 map of the township with all the property lines and landowners labeled throughout. The digital archives are an amazing resource for scans of so many primary sources, and I was only able to scratch the surface today because of time. As I continue to work on this particular project, I will be visiting these archives frequently, and I can't wait to see what else I can uncover!