General Land Office - Continued

Last month, I covered the Bureau of Land Management's General Land Office database of Land Patent Records., but I found some more very useful information there after the last article went to press. This information was useful and important enough to warrant continuing our discussion of it this month.

For new readers, this site has been set up and is operated by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. It provides live database and image access to more than two million federal land title records for the Eastern Public Land States, issued between 1820 and 1908.

This database includes information on Land Patent and Warrant Certificates, indexed both by the Patentee or Warrantee (that is, the person who applied for and was granted the certificate for that land). It also contains images of the original certificates granting these ancestors the right to own and sell the land. You can copy these certificates to your own computer, absolutely free or the BLM will print them on parchment for you and send them for a nominal fee. You can find this site at:

http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/

I wanted to advise my readers of some things that came to my attention as I researched the site further:

First, in November, 1998 the GLO automation process will be expanded to include "Serial" Patent records issued after June 30, 1908. This expanded effort will also include records for the western states. Over 1.24 million "serial" patents will be added to the web site during the next three years.

In addition, several other, smaller, searchable databases are being placed online by GLO, including the Illinois Federal land patents. Over 227,000 of the estimated 260,000 pre-1908 patents have been processed, with the remaining documents projected for completion by November 01, 1998. The Illinois database and images should be available for query in December 1998. While you are waiting for the BLM to complete the imaging of Illinois records, you should visit the Illinois Public Domain Land Tract Sales Web site at:

http://www.sos.state.il.us/depts/archives/data_lan.html

From the Illinois site, you can locate your family history data and then contact the Bureau of Land Management, Eastern States to order certified copies of the land patent documents. Or you can wait until December (not too long a wait!!) and look them up in this wonderful new image database.

Second, I found that, due to the organization and binding methods utilized by the GLO, the data bases accessible from this web site currently do not contain every federal title record issued for the states listed, though this is being worked on. They DO contain millions of records; probably the vast bulk of the Patents and Warrants granted under this act, but they are not complete. If you feel that an ancestor did receive land under this act but can't find the document, don't give up; there are other types of information that GLO can provide you with. Even if you DO find the records and certificates you seek, you may well want access to the other information that the GLO can provide you with:

Field Notes and Survey Plats
GLO's Eastern States division has field notes and survey plats for the States of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, and Wisconsin. (Many years ago, the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C., took possession of the field notes and survey plats for Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, and Ohio.)

Serial Patents
The GLO Eastern States Office maintains the Serial Patents for the Western Public Land States. These records are not indexed nor do they have the Western tract books to research the patents. If you would like a copy of a Western State Serial Patent please contact the specific BLM State Office for information. You can find a complete list of contact information for every BLM office, both Federal and for every state, by going to:

http://www.blm.gov/nhp/

Land Patent Case Files
Case files were created when a person claimed land under an act of Congress. They first had to fill out an application at the local General Land Office. Other documents were also created under that application, like receipts for any payments, or affidavits of occupation. Eastern States did not keep these files. They are now the responsibility of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Washington, D.C. If you want to see these case files, they are on microfilm at NARA. You can go to the NARA Search Site (which is called NAIL) at:

http://www.nara.gov/nara/nail.html

If you cannot locate a particular document, Research Staff at the NARA can help you. You will find e-mail links to them on the NAIL page.

Well, that should keep you happily surfing until next month. Try visiting these resources and don't hesitate to look around while you're there. You shuold be looking at every web-link and button on every page you visit just to find out what else you can do and where else you can go from each of these pages. Often the people who put together such a site know a good deal more than any of us about their particular specialty. Knowing that, they deliberately put resources on their pages that they feel will be useful to you. Do not neglect to check them out; exploration is a lot of the fun to be had on the web. It ceratinly has been for me!!

And to those of you who attended our "Genealogy & the Internet" class on October 10th, thank you!! You all did a great job mastering these tools and resources. I had never taught a class like that, before, (though it certainly looks like I will again) and I must say that the best part of the whole class was that moment when I looked around to see who needed help and saw all of you finding resoures that will be useful to you again and again - and smiling.

© 1998 by Byron C. Bray. This, and all "Computers and Genealogy" articles, are copyright Byron C. Bray and may be copied for personal use but may NOT be reprinted without the permission of the author. Contact: byron.bray@cmug.com