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Archiver > MDGARRET > 2005-09 > 1128133496
From: Art Grady <>
Subject: Re: [MDGARRET] Re: [MDALLEGA] Land Records...
Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2005 19:24:56 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <003201c5c5ac$168a0d00$accdc241@yourw92p4bhlzg>
I located land records for my family in Garrett at the
Garrett County Courthouse and for some of the same
properties in Cumberland at the Allegany County
Courthouse. This was about 2 years ago and I think it
goes like this:
There should be a land record index, sometimes there
will be several, each covering a set of years. The
indexing is odd by what normal people would come up
with for instance a strict alphabetical listing of all
the buyers named Jones. Instead it might be all the
buyers whose last name starts with J are broken into
several separate pages based on what letter the buyer
first name starts with. So Arthur Jones and Andrew
Johnson would be on the same page and the index
listings would just be chronological from oldest to
newest. A little key in the front of the index tells
you what page to go to in the index itself. If that
page with all the buyers whose last name started with
j and first name started with A runs out of space the
indexer could just go to any leftover blank space or
page in the book and put for instance "continued on
page 524" at the end of the space on the first page.
This page could be before or after the original page
wherever there was room. I am sure many readers are
now confused, and it is easy to get confused even when
you are actually in the room working with the index
book.
This is where nice courthouse workers really save the
day and in both Garrett and Allegany I found the
people very nice and helpful.
The result of working in the index is you find your
relatives name either in the buyer or seller (I think
they are actually called Grantor and grantee) index
listing and it gives you a volume and page number to
the actual entry, which I think these records are in
chronological order.
You pull that volume and voila, there it is. When you
read that record it will almost certainly go back to
the beginning of the ownership of the property and say
for instance, "property know as Kennedy's Saloon,
being the same property originally owned by Daniel
Brant as recorded in vol 1, page 46, then known as lot
15 of the town plot survey of Mssrs Doe and Roe in
1849" or some such description.
This lets you start in any index you want, covering
the years you suspect and just work from names you
want to look for.
I think I started in Garrett and then went to Allegany
and worked backwards and the Garrett records named the
volume, page and date for the transactions on the
property that were before 1872, so I went right to the
volumes without the index in the Allegany Cty
Courthouse.
I didn't know how I would just start from an address
now and check any of this backwards, so I guess if I
had been determined to find out from the time my
ancestor sold out to now I would have just checked the
indexes for the name of the buyer from my ancestor
listed as a seller.
I am sure I could have asked the people in the
courthouse how to find the current address from the
wierd way that the locations are described. They don't
just say 47 Alder Street they say the property 67 feet
north from the corner of 2nd and Alder beginning at
the wall of (whatever), then running 200 feet west...
you have to read some of these to properly understand
how confusing it is.
I did the best getting the little map of Oakland in
the 100th anniversary history of Oakland (1949) by
Weeks and working with the plot map numbers, street
names, and I think there were names of the very first
owners of the ones purchased of graned at the time of
the survey also on some of the plots on that map.
I thought this research was very fun. You can also get
clues when someone died or had a financial collapse or
got things going again (not the dead people), You may
find the property being handled by an executor, or a
lease agreement, or the property going back to the
previous owner because the deal originally was an
agreement to pay like a land contract that didn't work
out.
Then it is fun to drive around in the very old part of
Oakland and see blocks that are now clear or a big
parkinglot where the railroad/hotel downtown
businesses were before the many fires. You get
confused and look at old restaurants and boarding
houses that are for sale right now and scratch your
head about if this was actually your ggg gf's store or
your gg aunt's boarding house in the 1860s or 19teens.
Someday I'll have the time and all the right papers
along to figure it out for sure, meanwhile I hope this
helps.
If my writing on this somewhat complex procedure is
unclear, well it's Friday, and my brain was only
running on impulse engines by 2 o'clock anyway.
Have a great weekend!
Art Grady
--- Branches & Lil' Twigs <>
wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
>
>
> I want to thank each of you who took time from your
> own research and offered
> your thoughts and suggestions regarding my inquiry.
> I am enormously
> grateful, your generosity and kindness are
> profoundly appreciated. The
> information you shared with me is enormously
> helpful.
>
>
>
> Thank you.
>
> Fran
>
>
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