BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT AND LAND TITLES HISTORY As the United States moved westward from the original ThirteenColonies, a need was recognized for an orderly system of surveying and describing the Federal lands to be opened for settlement. On May 20, 1785, the Continental Congress passed an act that established a Public Land Survey System based on a rectangular grid, and authorized the Treasury Board to sell public lands for revenue. The first land records to develop from the Ordinance of 1785 were survey field notes. Government surveys began in Ohio in 1785, and progressed westward as more territory was needed for settlers. The surveyor prepared the field notes describing the survey performed. The notes might include the names of settlers living in the survey area and a variety of descriptions of land formation, climate, soil, and plant and animal life. Survey were prepared by draftsmen who based their drawings on the information in the field notes. The General Land Office was established as part of the Treasury Department in 1812, and was set up to take charge of all survey and land title records. After the creation of the Department of Interior, the land record office was moved to that department. More recently, it has been renamed as the Bureau of Land Management. Most titles were transferred through patents (deeds) from the Federal Government, and these included railroad grants, swamp grants, school grants, Indian allotments, as well as private land claims. All of these records wererecorded in huge tract books. These tract books date from about 1800, and for many years they were maintained in local land offices. They tell who obtained the land from the Federal Government, and when. These tract books are now the property of the Bureau of Land Management. WHAT'S THERE AND WHO WANTS IT The Bureau of Land Management maintains the records of all Federal patents and land grants. Most of the requests for copies come from attorneys and abstract companies who must research the title to a parcel of land before they can insure the title. Individuals and firms involved in minerals exploration and development search these records to see whether the mineral rights were reserved to the Federal Government when the United States conveyed the land. Many of the requests come from southern states whose court houses were burned during the Civil War, and whose land records are incomplete. The records are also of interest and use to genealogists who want copies of the grants made to their ancestors. BLM's Eastern States division maintains 10,000 tract books containing the land records for the 13 public land states under its jurisdiction: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Missippi, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Considered the largest land title office in the world, Eastern States maintains almost five million Federal land conveyance documents wich precede and follow the ratification of the constitution. These conveyance documents include homesteads, cash sales, miscellaneous warrants, private land claims, swamp lists, State selections, and railroad lists. The 18 Eastern states were not covered by the land grant program and are not included in this project. These are states that were included in the original thirteen colonies and their territories, and they were not a part of the Federal lands acquired during national expansion. These states include Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia. Grants from them must be obtained from State archives, National archives, etc. AND IT'S ON A COMPUTER! Because of the continuous use of these old records, a great deal of damage was being done merely from constant use. They were literally being worn out. In 1989, the Eastern States division started a unique project to scan and copy these documents onto computer-readable optical disks - the GLO Automated Records Project. Once a document is copied, it is then stored in an acid-free box in a climate-controlled vault. AND *YOU* CAN GET A COPY OF IT If a genealogist can supply the legal description of a parcel of land which an ancestor obtained by patent from the Federal Government, the BLM can locate the patent and send a photocopy of the original. The legal description should include the subdivision, section, township, range, survey meridian, and state. Until quite recently, the name of the landowner alone was not sufficient to locate the patent, since they were indexed by location rather than by name of patentee. With this knowledge, you can write for copies of land grants in any of the states managed by the Eastern Division of the BLM. Now that the records are being computerized, they can be quickly searched by the patentee's name, the document number, the patent authority, county, or land office. Records through June 1908 for Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin are currently available for automated retrieval. It is planned that the data entry for all these states will be completedby 1996. The GLO now has an on-line retrieval system for these records. It costs $25 to activate an account with them. After you have set up an account, you can contact them via modem, and place an order for a photocopy of his land grant right from your computer. Address: Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, Eastern States, 7450 Boston Boulevard, Springfield, VA 22153. Phone is 703-440-1600. FAX is 703-440-1599.