Using The BLM Land Patent Search

One great way to find out about our ancestors is land purchases & sales. I have had some very wonderful surprises pop up.

The BLM has a wonderful website that allows you to search & sometimes view original land patents www.glorecords.blm.gov/ . One drawback it is kind of hard to figure out where the lived with the land description unless you know how to read a topo map. This page will help you figure out how to read the land descriptions http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/Visitors/PLSS.asp .

My biggest complaint now would be “I don’t want to go out & buy a bunch of maps”, well http://www.esg.montana.edu/gl/trs-data.html will help with converting township & range into longitude & latitude, and link you over to terrasever so you can view a topo map & aerial photo of the land. The tough part is figuring out what meridian the land is in. The states this does cover is the 17 western state (AR, AZ, CA, CO, ID, KS, MT, ND, NE, NM, NV, OK, OR, SD, UT, WA and WY). I had one problem with an oil & gas lease, but it could have been me, a mistake on the document or the program, but it did get me in the ballpark.

Feel free to comment if you have any questions & I will expand on what I have here.

Dennis

Free Maps On The Library Of Congress Website

I thought you might find this interesting, old maps on the Library of Congress website http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/browse/ListSome.php?format=Map

I'm not sure if this is the main page or not http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/gmdhome.html , probably best to try both links.

Looks like they are using the new JPG format, JPG2000. More info here http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/help/compression.html .

Dennis

Missouri Death Certificates, 1910 – 1955

I just found out Missouri has started putting there Death Cerificates online http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/resources/deathcertificates/

There are some originals, I was able to view my 2nd great grandmother's certificate. There is one problem with the search function, if you narrow down your search by county you won't get any hits. So I recommend putting in the names > click search & used "Ctrl F" to find the county you are looking for.

Dennis

Free Genealogy Links

Here are a few of my favorite free genealogy links
http://quartzsite.gen.googlepages.com/useful_links.pdf

Would love to find out about more.
Dennis