The Elusive Deed

You're thinking "Not land records again!"

Yes, land records!

If you have ancestors who were land owners, the land records are an important resource. However, they are not always simple. Metes and bounds deeds continue to challenge me. It took me twelve years to find one elusive deed.

You don't want to make the same mistakes I did, right?

First, here are 14 quick tips and then I'll take you through a long tale of my steps and my errors.

1. Deeds can be wrong.
2. Indexes can be wrong.
3. The in-book index and the master index book may not have the same information.
4. Use the tract index if one exists. 
5. Read every single deed for the property and time frame.
6. Get photocopies of all pertinent deeds, not notes or abstracts or transcripts. Consider photocopies of the indexes if cost permits.
7. Know every number and name that might identify the property: patent, warrant, survey, township, range, section, addition, subdivision, lot, tax ID.
8. Find a copy of the original recorded survey where possible, not an abstract.  
9. The recorder/register office may have other resources. Ask for a tour.
10. Collect maps, both those relevant to the time being searched and a current map from County Engineering or the office that is mapping the land.
11. Court cases can trigger deeds. If you find one, look for a copy of the court case.
12. The tax assessor knows more than you think.
13. The local genealogical society may hold or know of special resources. Ask for advice.
14. Early census records can lead to invalid assumptions.

The Twelve Year Quest

My goal was to identify all the children of an old farmer who died just before the 1850 census. The probate did not list the heirs and did not mention disposition of the land. I was working from brief notes jotted by a distant cousin.

First, did she even have the right family? My ancestor (the murder victim) had sold some land, but was it his father's land? Neither man was listed in the grantee index as buying the land in question. After reviewing the deeds for the land the old farmer purchased, I discovered the grantee index was wrong. It listed the 90 acres that he purchased in 1841 with a number that matched not one single thing that was in the deed. If I had not looked at each deed, and had just looked at the index, I would not have seen the connection. I wish my cousin had provided copies or even a note about the index error. I also didn't understand why the maps and deeds had different numbers. I wouldn't learn that for several years.

Working from her notes, I quickly found where each of seven children had sold a one-eighth undivided part of the land within the family. Some of them sold part of 90 acres while others sold part of 50 acres or part of 55 acres. How much land did the old farmer really hold at his death? He had sold 13.75 acres and 38.5 acres from the same tract of land. To this day I don't know the answer, but the deeds with 90 acres were definitely in error.

In 1860, the sibling who owned it sold his 7/8 undivided part of the farm outside the family. The eighth sibling was still unidentified. I began to follow the land as it passed from owner to owner. In 1869, 3/4 of an acre was set aside for a school lot. I failed to read the deeds for the school lot. This was another error.

One of the deeds made no sense. After being lost to foreclosure in 1863, the 7/8 part of the land was auctioned. Yet in 1881, the owner's widow signed a quit claim and dower release for the 7/8 part in exchange for a sum of cash. Had she not lost her rights in the foreclosure? Apparently there was a need to create a clean title through a quit claim.

Unfortunately, this quit claim led me astray. I presumed the missing 1/8 was still missing in 1881. It wasn't. But it took several more years and a couple more courthouse visits to find the missing piece.

Fast forward a few years to year eleven of the search. Technology had advanced and the genealogical society had moved. The society had been in cramped quarters and accessing much of the collection had been a problem. However, I delayed checking out the new larger facility and talking to the staff. This was another error.

Based on the census records from 1820 to 1840, I had concluded that the eighth child was a daughter, born 1820-1825 and married after the 1840 census. I had listed all the young women of the surname who had married between 1840 and 1850. I returned to the recorder's office and checked the deed index and deeds using the husbands' surnames. No luck. The conclusion, based on the 1840 census, was wrong.

Next I decided to start with the present and work the deeds backwards in time. Who owned the property now? The recorder didn't know, so sent me to the tax office. What was the tax ID? I had no clue, so the tax office sent me to engineering to get the parcel number from the current maps.

Engineering was an amazing resource. Hanging on racks around the office were many large maps of the county. The staffer asked for the survey number. I had no clue, as all the early deeds had been written based on the military warrant number. My copy of a D.A.R. survey abstract had the warrant number, but not the survey number. I had never looked for the original survey. That was another error.

She pulled out a copy of a ledger that cross-indexed the surveys and warrants. I was stunned when I saw the survey number matched the number on the landowner maps. Why had I never seen that cross-reference index? She told me where in the recorder's office I could find copies of the original survey book and of the cross-reference ledger. These books were stored above my eye-level and I didn't know they were there! Had I ever had a tour of the recorder's office? I should have asked.

Having found the survey number, she pulled out a lovely color-coded map of the area that included the property. She made me a color copy, zoomed in on the farm. Since she had no way to charge for the copies, she just gave me the copy!
 

Survey 12346 (green boundary), Tax Parcel 376-01, Part of Military Warrant 6498. Map as of 2014.

With map in hand, it was back to the tax office. They gave me not only the name of the current owner, but also the deed book and page number where the owner's purchase had been recorded.

The newer deeds each listed the previous deed, so it was fairly quick to follow the deeds back to 1881. The land was being transferred as a whole parcel, so the missing 1/8 had been sold to an owner at some point. Why couldn't I find it?

I went through the survey book and bought copies of each survey of interest. I also wrote down warrant to survey cross-references. Notice that, in the survey, the number 12346 is written inside the plat diagram. When D.A.R. abstracted the written information, they missed documenting the survey number, which is vital information.

Survey 12456 for Military Warrant 6498, in 1823

In the final hours of my visit to the county, I went to see the new genealogical society facility. It was now a wonderful research library. The volunteers had indexed many of the holdings. The staffer on duty took me on a tour and showed me the storage area where the volunteers were cataloging and indexing old court records, which was a collection in which I was interested. But that would be another visit. In the meantime, I purchased, on CD, an index to the marriage consents and affidavits. I also purchased some printed indexes.

When I returned home, I reviewed my purchases. There, in the marriage consents index, I found the answer. The missing daughter had married in 1839 and her father, the old farmer, had signed a consent. I should have included earlier marriages in my search. I sent off for a copy of the consent for my files. If I had found that consent during the visit, I could have concluded the deed search that trip.

A year later, in year twelve of the search, I returned to the county. First stop was the recorder's office. With the new clue, I found a handful of deeds. But there was still a missing link. Why couldn't I find it?

There were two more road blocks to remove. One deed was indexed incorrectly. It covered two parcels of land and only one of the parcels was in the index -- the other parcel. And lastly, the consolidation of the land into one owner was only understood by reading a court case.

The eighth daughter had died, leaving two children. In the sale of the school lot to the Board of Education, those two children had been two of the grantors, each owning a 1/16 part. Had I read that deed years ago, the puzzle would have been solved.

Although I had the genealogical answer, I wanted to understand how the land was consolidated. The answer was in the court cases held by and indexed by the genealogical society.

The son had a guardianship that referred to him as an imbecile. In 1874, his father petitioned the court to partition the land. This may have been the best legal way to deal with the 1/16 fractional ownership by his handicapped son. The daughter had already sold her 1/16 to her father. The appraisers determined that the partition could not be done without damage to the property and so the entirety of the land was ordered sold at auction. The 7/8 owner bought the entire parcel at the sheriff's sale. Reading the deed alone didn't clarify the ownership. In fact, it made no sense to me. Only by a combination of the court case and the deed could I understand the puzzling transaction.

Along the way I collected some landowner maps that I share here for cousins, along with my own index of the transactions. I am also happy to share scans of the deeds and the court case with any cousin who asks.

1844

1858

1871

Click on image below to see a larger version.

Deed Index for part of Military Warrant 6498, Pickaway County, Ohio, 1841-1881

Please use the contact form to send me a message. Include your email address to get a copy of the index in Excel format and copies of deeds and court records in a pdf format.