Wisdom Wednesday: 1875 Scottish Valuation Rolls

In late September, Scotland’s People announced that the Valuation Rolls for 1875 were now on their website www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk. The index, covering all of Scotland, can be browsed free of charge until the 31 December 2014.

You can search by name of property owners, tenants and occupiers plus by addresses across all of Scotland from 1875 to 1915, at ten year intervals and also 1920. This search often can reveal valuable information about your ancestors between census years. “The latest addition comprises over 900,000 index entries and almost 72,000 digital images taken from 141 volumes of Valuation Rolls.”

A valuation roll which is essentially the same as an assessor’s list or a county appraiser’s list puts a value on real estate for tax purposes. At a minimum you can expect the owner’s name, the address and value placed on the property. You might find much more such as the acreage and a description of the land.

Wisdom Wednesday: Land Description by Map Reference

Of the essential clauses in a deed, the land description is the most unfamiliar to the average genealogist. I explained the metes and bounds system of land measurement in a blog posted 13 Oct 2011, and I described the Government Survey System in two posts, 15 and 22 Aug 2012. The first system is used in the state land states; the thirteen original colonies and Maine, Vermont, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Texas and Hawaii. The other 30 states are called federal land states.

A third system that is used in both state and federal land states refers to a lot number on a plan for a subdivision. Depending where you live in the U.S., it might be called the recorded plat, recorded map, recorded survey or the lot-block-tract system. Briefly, a map of a large tract of land has been surveyed into smaller lots, the subdivision named and the new lots numbered. Then the resulting map is recorded at a county land records office. From that time, a legal description of one of the small lots can just refer to the number on the recorded map.

You might think this seems like a modern suburban subdivision which it is.  If you think that you would not be able to find an older deed that uses this method to describe land, you would be wrong.  I have found a deed from 1843 in Massachusetts and 1850s Pennsylvania. So be ready.

Here is an example from a turn of the 20^th century Montana deed:

 

 

 

Necessary information:

            Name of subdivision: Seymer Park Addition, Block 17, City of Helena
            Lot Number(s): 1,2,3
            Where map recorded: Office of the Clerk and Recorder, Lewis and Clark County

Wisdom Wednesday: What Genealogists Want

As I write, I am also preparing a talk about “Accessing Land Records Online” that I will give at the Ohio Genealogy Society Conference. I was thinking about what features a good land website would have. Then I realized that they were the same basic features I wanted from any site – ancestry.com or familysearch.org. My list includes:

                -search by name

                -see original document on the screen

                -print or save the original document, free

There are over 3000 land records offices in the U.S. with little coordination between them, but in this day and age, almost all have a web presence. You will find offices with a bare minimum of data online, that is, only their contact information, address, phone and email. Some reach my criteria for a perfect site. The vast majority of the web sites are between the minimum and the ideal.

Fees for copies are common when you visit an office in person.  Losing this revenue when the world went digital was a fiscal issue in many land offices. If a recorder needs or wants to charge and then puts its images online, many genealogists are clever enough to take screen shots to bypass payment so the records offices may not post the images either.

Charges range from $.50 to about $2.00 per page. The copies are cheap when compared to prices for vital records, so that is the silver lining.

The websites are very exciting so go to the one where your ancestors lived and see what is available.

Wisdom Wednesday: Land Records Online

While preparing for a talk called ‘Accessing Land Records Online,’ I‘m anticipating that listeners might wonder why land records offices digitize their collections from the present and work back in time. After all, don’t they want to preserve the oldest, most fragile records from deteriorating?

Remember preservation is only one goal of the offices. Another is giving access to the documents most in demand by land records users - think real estate professionals, not genealogists.  They, like us, want the convenience of accessing the documents from their offices without a trip to the records office. However, the real estate community has need for the most recent deeds for two reasons.

First, before a closing the records are searched for clear title. Then the new deed and closing papers are prepared. It is inevitable that some time passes. On the day of the closing, the lawyer or title professional must search all recent documents to see if the owner has sold the property to someone besides today’s buyer during this time gap. Thus an urgent need to access recent documents quickly and efficiently is created.

Title insurance is a policy that protects against a defect in the title abstract prepared for a real estate closing. There is a one-time premium payment made at the closing table. In order to issue a policy, insurance companies that sell this product demand clear title for the past 50-75 years, depending on which insurer is used.  Again the most recent land records need to be searched. You might notice that, in these tough economic times, record offices with tight budgets may have online records going back this length of time and have now reallocated funds elsewhere.

 

Land Patents

A land patent is the first deed granting federal land to a private person, company or local government. The federal government received land in 1783 after the Revolution when Britain ceded all lands south of the Great Lakes and east of the Mississippi River to the fledgling country. In 1785, a land ordinance passed authorizing the sale of public lands and establishing the Public Land Survey System to measure and identify the property. (See blog posts from August 15 and 22, 2012 for details of survey system.)

The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 almost doubled the size of the country, all of this land owned by the federal government. In 1812, the General Land Office (GLO) was created to oversee the disposition of ceded and acquired land, first as part of the Treasury and since 1849, as part of the Department of the Interior.

You can find details of the land patents at www.glorecords.blm.gov. Four types of documents are described on the home page. The first two are of most interest to genealogists – land patents, and survey plats and field notes. There were about 7,500.000 land patents issued and about 5,000,000 are now searchable at this site. Like all land records, they put people in a specific place at a specific time.

Click the “Search Documents” button on top of the home page. Select a state from the drop down menu. You must add one more criteria.  Most likely a surname or a county name are the two most commonly used ones. Then click the “Search Patents” button. For example, I chose the State of Ohio and the surname, “Starr.” The first page of the results are below:

 

To see the original document, click on the blue items in column two. The third from the top is a Military Warrant for David Starr, a veteran of the War of 1812, who transfers his rights to the forty acres to James McFarland.

                                                                                                             ©2012, Susan Lewis Well

 

Thankful Thursday: Happy about Past and Upcoming Opportunities

Happy Thanksgiving!

-I am thankful for my fledgling ‘career’ in genealogy, especially that I can write this weekly blog, mostly without stress to meet my self-imposed deadline.

-I was pleased with my Beginning Genealogy class at the Lifelong Learning Academy in Sarasota, Florida. Eight weeks gave most people time to meet their initial goal.

-Several groups in Florida took a chance on a relatively new speaker. Thank you to the Englewood and Sarasota genealogy groups for their faith and attention. I think they know a little more about reading a deed now.

-I enjoyed meeting my sister in Cincinnati for the NGS conference, May 9 – 12. We had a good time and loved Fountain Square and the Underground RR Museum. By a stroke of luck, I was selected to be an official blogger for the event. I found it really hard to write with a such tight deadlines and when exhausted. I need the gift of stamina soon.

Hot News for 2013 (1)

Ohio Genealogy Society – Annual Conference

Expanding Your Ancestry Through Technology

25-27 April 2013, Millennium Hotel, Cincinnati

I will speak twice on Saturday afternoon: Accessing Land Records Online, Deeds: An Insider’s View.

Hot News for 2013 (2)

The Lifelong Learning Academy, Sarasota, Florida – Intermediate Genealogy: Researching Abroad

Beginning the week of January 7 for eight weeks - $75 plus a parking pass www.thelifelonglearningacademy.com

                        From the soon to be published catalog:

You are ready to search for your ancestors abroad, if you have previously taken a beginning genealogy course and have conducted extensive research with records here in North America. We will develop a research plan and strategies to find your ancestors so come to the first class with a person’s name and village of origin in a European country.

If you will be in the area, please consider taking this course. Most genealogists learn about advanced topics by attending society meetings, reading and researching on their own. Here is a rare chance to interact with others on your level in a supportive atmosphere.

Hot News for 2013 (3)

South Bay Genealogical Society, Sun City, Florida

Tuesday, 19 Mar 2013

"Basic English Research"

www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~flsbgs

Meetings at the South Shore Regional Library and the year’s programs are listed on the website.

Hope you can make it to one of my talks or classes.

©2012, Susan Lewis Well

Wisdom Wednesday: Military Bounty Land Records

A few posts ago, I mentioned land given as compensation for military service while describing the Homestead Act that was passed after the U.S. Civil War. Prior to the Civil War, there were bounty lands available for military service. This post will give some resources for colonial America, the Revolution, War of 1812 and the Mexican War.

Bounty land given to encourage and reward military service began as a British practice and was continued by the founding fathers who as early as 1776 had a plan for revolutionary era soldiers and sailors.

Noted genealogist, Lloyd Bockstruck, notes several other reasons for the bounty programs: to gain support for a war, to protect borders, and to encourage settlement. See his full article at www.genealogy.com/24_land.html  Bockstruck may be the leading expert on bounty land programs because he authored two books on the subject of this country's earliest veterans:

     Bounty and Donation Land Grants in Colonial America. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co. 2007.
     Revolutionary War Bounty Land Grants: Awarded by State Governments. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co. 1996.     

Genealogists need to know what records exist so looking first at a general site makes sense. You will find where bounty land applications are filed, and that both the approved and rejected ones were kept. Veterans received a warrant saying they were entitled to the land, but the warrant could be sold or assigned to another person. Many people wanted to stay in their hometown and not go to the frontier.

For a general discussion and good  links to other sites, try one of my favorite fellow bloggers, Kim Powell, at about.com. www.genealogy.about.com/od/records/p/bounty_lands.htm

Ancestry.com has some records online:

-Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application FIles
-U.S.Revolutionary War, Bounty Land Warrants Used by the U.S. Military District of Ohio and Related Papers
-U.S. War Bounty Land Warrants, 1789-1858
-War of 1812 Pension Application Files Index, 1812-1815

Here are the specifics on each early war and eligibility for bounty land:

Revolutionary War

As mentioned above, the Continental Congress in 1776 began passing a series of bills to compensate soldiers with land. They were refined until 1855. All ranks of service men were eligible, and the amount of land changed with their rank. The land was in Ohio.

General info with links is available at the family serach wiki. www.learn/wiki/en/revolutionary_war_pension_records_and_bounty_land_warrants

War of 1812 (1812-1815)

Enabling legislation was passed many times between 1811 and 1855. In summary, only enlistees were eligible for 160 or 320 acres in specified areas of Illinois, Missouri and Arkansas. Warrants could not be assigned. See the Winter issue of "American Ancestors" for more info on the War of 1812:

Deeben, John P. Pension and Bounty-Land Records Relating to Military Service in the War of 1812, "American Ancestors"Winter 2012, Vol.13, no. 1, Boston: NEHGS.

Mexican War (1846-1848)

Congress enacted a law in 1847 to give enlisted men only 40 or 160 acres of land or scrip to locate on any public land. Records for this war are harder to come by but can be found at NARA Record Group 15 (RG15) T317, Index to Mexican War Pension Files.

©2012, Susan Lewis Well

Wisdom Wednesday: Government Land Survey, Part I

Thirty states in the U.S. use the Government Survey System, also known as the Rectangular Survey System or the Public Lands Survey System, to describe land. They are mostly in the West, land purchased or ceded to us by other countries. By 1785, a land ordinance was passed to allow settlement of the public domain lands of the original thirteen colonies and to establish the mapping method. The country was ready for the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 when President Jefferson bought 800,000+ acres of unsurveyed land that would become all or part of 15 states and two Canadian provinces.

The western land is divided into six-mile by six-mile squares, called townships, and then further subdivided into 36 sections, one mile by one mile. So they are not just floating in space, a township is described in relation to meridians and base lines. Some definitions, charts and examples follow:
   
            Meridians – north-south lines used as reference in mapping public land.

            Prime or Principal Meridians – thirty six north/south lines designated to be major reference points. Every twenty four miles east and west of the prime meridians are ‘guide meridians’ use to correct for the curvature of the earth. 

            Base line – thirty six east- west latitude lines chosen as references in the Public Lands Survey system; every twenty four miles north and south of these lines are correction lines or parallels to account for the curvature of the earth.

            Township – a six-mile by six-mile square formed by the intersection of lines parallel to the meridian and base lines; not to be confused with political areas with the same name.

            Section – Each township is divided into 36 one-mile by one-mile areas of 640 acres each.

Let’s work on deciphering a legal description from a Montana deed:

The northeast quarter of the northwest quarter (NE ¼, NW 1/4), the northwest quarter of the northeast quarter (NW ¼, NE ¼) of Section eighteen (18), Township nineteen (19) north of range seven (7) west containing eighty (80) acres more or less, according to the United States Government Survey thereof.

              Lewis and Clark County, MT, October 24, 1919, Mettler to J.B. Long and Co.

Working backwards, we will find the township using the base line and meridian information given above. While this deed does not give the meridian name, all Montana land is measured from one baseline and meridian.

Township Designation:  

“Every six miles east and west of each principal meridian, parallel imaginary lines are drawn. The resulting 6-mile-wide columns are called ranges and are numbered east and west of the principal meridian. For example, the first range west is called Range 1 West and abbreviated R1W. The next range west in R2W and so forth. The fourth range east is R4E.

Every six miles north and south of a base line, township lines are drawn. They intersect with range lines and produce 6 by 6-mile imaginary squares called townships…(those) lying in the first row or tier north of the baseline all carry the designation Township 1 North, abbreviated T1N, and in the second tier south, T2S.”
                                                                                                                    Harwood, pp. 20-22

A township on a deed will be designated by two groups of numbers and letters. For example, T2N, R2E, which is read ‘township 2 north, range 2 east’, is a township two tiers north of a base line and three ranges east of a meridian. The meridian may be named in the deed.

On the chart below, the horizontal green line is a base line, and the vertical green line is a meridian.
The town dicussed in the last paragraph is highlighted on the chart below.

T3N R3W	T3N R2W	T3N R1W	T3N R1E	T3N R2E	T3N R3E
T2N R3W	T2N R2W	T2N R1W	T2N R1E	T2N R2E	T2N R3E
T1N R3W	T1N R2W	T1N R1W	T1N R1E	T1N R2E	T1N R3E
T1S R3W	T1S R2W	T1S R1W	T1S R1E	T1S R2E	T1S R3E
T2S R3W	T2S R2W	T2S R1W	T2S R1E	T2S R2E	T2S R3E
T3S R3W	T3S R2W	T3S R1W	T3S R1E	T3S R2E	T3S R3E

T3S, R3W is a township three south of a baseline and in the third range west of a prime meridian. On the chart above, it is in the lower left corner. (Not all of the townships are so close to the meridian and base line to be visible on my convenient little chart. T13N, R51W is thirteen towns north of the base line and fifty one ranges west of the meridian.

In the Montana deed above, the township information is not abbreviated and reads “Township nineteen (19) north of range seven (7) west.” It could be written T19N, R7W. In other words the township is nineteen tiers north of the baseline and seven ranges west.

We still have a ways to go to find the land in the Montana deed, but it is filed in Lewis and Clark County so the land is there. Helena, Montana’s state capital, is located in this county.

Sources: Harwood, Bruce. Real Estate Principles. Reston, VA: Reston Publishing Company, Inc. 1977

Lewis and Clark County Records, Helena, MT, Deed, 1919, Mettler to Long and Co.

Next Week: Numbering and Subdividing a Section.
                                                                                                        ©2012, Susan Lewis Well

Wisdom Wednesday: The Homestead Act of 1862

The U.S. Congress enacted the Homestead Act in 1862 which gave settlers who lived on and farmed public domain land for five years the right to own 160 acres of it. While these requirements changed over time, the concept remained the same:  If a person fulfilled the legal requirements to be granted free land, the government through the General Land Office would grant them a ‘Patent of Ownership.’

In this way, 270 million acres were given away. That is about one-sixth of the total United States. The land was in the 30 states west of the eastern seaboard and also not in Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas, Hawaii, and West Virginia.

The process began when a pioneer filed an application for a certain piece of land and paid the application fee of about $30.00. To be eligible to file the application, the person needed to be a citizen or intend to become a citizen before it was time to issue the patent.  He or she had to be 21 years old or the head of a household. The National Archives, Washington, D.C. has the original applications except  those for the State of Alaska, which are kept in Anchorage by the Bureau of Land Management or the National Archives branch.

After applying, the person had to meet three further criteria:

     -perform some agricultural activity on the land.  

     -live on the property for a period of time. The maximum was the original five years, but that decreased to only seven months for some veterans.

     -live in a habitable dwelling on the land.

More history of the homesteading program and specific requirements for a time period or a certain class of war veterans can be accessed at the Bureau of Land Management website, www.blm.gov.

The patents that were granted are online at the same site. From the home page of www.blm.gov, click ‘Information Center’ from the column on the left. Then you want to click on number 4, ‘General Land Office Records Automation.’

At the next screen, click on ‘Land Patents’ which will bring you to a screen where you can search by name, state, and/or county plus other more advance criteria. The information given will be familiar to those of you in the 30 federal land states. Others of us have to think about meridians, townships and sections before some of the columns make sense. My next blog will give the basics of the Government Land Survey system.

The program with modifications was used as a benefit for veterans in several wars. A former soldier might have no desire or no talent to farm in the west so he might assign his benefit to someone else, possibly a speculator. Money would change hands. Records have the name of the patent owner and the name of the assignee. Veterans could also exchange their right to the land for scrip or money from the government.

Homesteading provided land to people who were not likely to be able to afford it in this country or in their original country and give or take the speculators it was a good program to develop the country.

                                                                ©2012, Susan Lewis Well

Wisdom Wednesday: Scrivener’s Affidavit or Corrective Deed

As important as the wording of a deed is and as carefully as the document is prepared, mistakes happen. When that occurs, a Scrivener’s Affidavit or Corrective Deed is filed. (Remember that the name of the documents will change in the various states.)

This post was inspired by a woman at a recent presentation who asked if I wouldn’t have found something I had missed when I transcribed the deed. Transcribed the deed? Was she really suggesting that in this age of photocopying that I hand write a copy, word for word, from the document? Yes.

We agreed to disagree about the importance of this traditional step. Never having the time or the need to know the deed that intimately in my work as an appraiser, I couldn’t really see what was to be gained. I pointed out to her that most errors on a deed are in the names, especially the middle initials, and in the legal description. If a person who prepares deeds professionally makes mistakes on the description, how can a genealogist expect to get it right. Truce.

Whatever you choose to do to get the most out of a deed, read it very carefully or take the time to transcribe it, be aware that more experienced people that you make mistakes and correct them. 

A scrivener is a somewhat antiquated term for a clerk or copyist who prepares legal documents. If an error in a deed is minor, such as the spelling of a name or a middle initial is wrong, a Scrivener’s Affidavit is recorded. This document is used when you only need to clarify an aspect of the deed.

A Corrective Deed is used to change or substantially modify the description of the property, add or delete a grantor or grantee, or add other information that affects the title to the property or its description.  This would require the signature of the grantor and would be in the grantor/grantee index using the names you would expect.

On the other hand, Scrivener’s Affidavits are or can be indexed under the name of the scrivener and not the parties to the deed, making them really hard to find. Luckily, they are not used to change major items, but we genealogists would like to see the name or spelling changes. If you are lucky, the original deed affected may be noted in the margin of the affidavit or corrective deed. On the original deed, the book and page of the correction should be noted. This would be the ideal situation, and I hope you find it that way in your jurisdictions.

©2012, Susan Lewis Well

Wisdom Wednesday – Legal Education for Non-Lawyers

There are large groups of professionals who need a working knowledge of land-related legal terms. I count Realtors®, appraisers, and surveyors at the top of this group.

I was a Realtor®. My ‘legal’ education began in 1979 with the first course I took to get my broker’s license. The text book we used was Real Estate Principles by Bruce Harwood. (Reston, Virginia: Reston Publishing Company 1977) It is a battered, but treasured part of my library. Revised many times since, it is used in college level real estate courses and in license prep courses for Realtors®.  Over the years, Harwood took on a co-author, Charles J. Jacobus, who is now the only author of the 2009 11th Edition.

It is noted for its definitions of terms for non-lawyers. For genealogy purposes, the older editions are generally fine. The early chapters define deeds, discuss legal descriptions and give details of recording procedures, the one item that has changed dramatically with the advent of computers and the internet. It is helpful for genealogists to know how records are handled at repositories, so a newer edition may be worth the expense.   

Later chapters of the book deal with mortgages and home finance, an area that does change rapidly. If you have a personal need for the information, then buy a new edition, but it will be costly. Amazon.com has a good selection of new and used volumes. Before buying, check American Book Exchange, www.abebooks.com.

An online source for basic legal information is www. lawyers.com. The site primarily exists as a referral network, if you need an attorney, but has a lot of basic information.  If you follow the path below, you will come to a basic page about deeds including the essential part of deeds, types of deeds and definitions of terms.

www.lawyers.com>Understand your legal issues>Real Estate>Residential Real Estate>Deeds

©2012, Susan Lewis Well

Wisdom Wednesday – Land Records’ Offices (Part 2)

Three weeks ago, I wrote a well-received article about the rhythms and seasons of a Records Office. Since then, I have wondered whether I have other words of wisdom on the topic. Some ideas have come to mind. For example, I have heard stories about genealogy researchers getting very different receptions in various offices, usually one reaction in one office and another the very next day in the county next door.

I suggested in my earlier post that time of day, day of week and month of year are important considerations in making requests for assistance in a records office. Also consider that staff takes vacations during the summer. We often do our genealogy field trips then so don’t forget that the office may be short a person or two the week you visit.

What is the office’s staffing level compared to two years ago or ten years ago? Even without the economic turndown, county commissioners tend to think that less staff is needed because there are computers to do the work. The surveyors, lawyers, title examiners, Realtors® and appraisers who use the land records daily want to be able to access the deeds from their office desks. They don’t think that is an unreasonable request. After all, there are computers. However, someone has to scan the documents into the system. Having less staff creates real, identifiable problems. You don’t have to be a regular user to experience the consequences.

The internal dynamics of offices differ. To be honest, I think the office takes on the personality of the head clerk. We should be able to understand the people have good days and bad. The work performed is very exacting. Papers cannot be lost, misplaced or misfiled. For the most part, the work is done extremely well. That is the good news.

History detectives are not the typical Land Office users. The staff is used to answering questions about the most recent deeds and deeds going back 50-60 years to satisfy the requirements to obtain title insurance. Few people do what you and I do - look for records more than 60 years old.

Let me give you some practical tips for successfully finding your ancestors deeds and related records in busy, understaffed offices. Prepare before you contact the office. “Google” the county name. Almost every county in the U.S. has a website where you can click on the most appropriate sounding office; Registry of Deeds, County Records Office or Land Records Office. This link should be fairly easy to find because the legal/banking/real estate community uses it regularly and carries some clout.
 
The website should provide some or all of the following information: date of the earliest document held, the date of the earliest deed online, how the online deeds are indexed, how to print a document, and how to pay, if there is a charge.  When you have thoroughly studied the site and still have questions, it’s time to contact the office. Be ready to tell them the name of your ancestor and the years he could have owned property in the county. A birth year is a useless number because land owners must be the age of majority (usually 18 or 21) to be granted land without a guardian.  

However you contact an office; in person, on the phone or by email, ask your first question. If the response is less than satisfactory, ask a second question. Still not getting anywhere? Ask a third question. By this point, the clerk you are communicating with will find, transfer your call or forward your email to the person in the office who likes helping people like us. There is usually at least one.

Do not assume that the economic turndown has affected each county in the same way or to the same degree.  Even in the worst hit places, the registry workers are busy filing municipal lien certificates for unpaid taxes and foreclosure paperwork. In some places, market values have not plummeted and business continues as usual plus some folks refinancing for a lower, extremely attractive rate. The staff in most places is not less busy and therefore ready to spend time with history detectives. That is the bad news.

©2012, Susan Lewis Well

Wisdom Wednesday – Land Records Offices' Rhythms and Seasons

To everything there is a season…how true, even in a land records office. If you research a little about the real estate market in the location where your ancestors lived, you will accomplish more in a shorter time when searching for their deeds.

Generally, few closings take place in the early morning. Lawyers and title examiners check their offices and review necessary paperwork. Sellers put the last touches on the property so it is ‘broom clean.’ Buyers go to the bank to secure a cashier’s check and do a final inspection of the property. Then everyone meets at the closing site sometime after 10:00 a.m.

The land records office or registry of deeds opens an hour or two earlier.  The personnel always have work to do but have more time in the early morning to answer questions from you, the genealogist and local historian. One caveat is that during a period when a lot of people are refinancing their mortgages to take advantage of lower rates, closings may happen earlier in the day because there are no final inspections to delay the closing times.

Weeks at a registry also have a rhythm. Many people close towards the end of the week, take Friday off and move over the ‘long weekend’ that they have created. If you are going to an area for a family reunion and some research, plan to attend the reunion on the weekend and drop by the land records office on Monday instead of Friday.

For financial reasons, people buying property with a mortgage need to close near the end of the month. The registry needs to catch up filing the paperwork during the first week of the month. You will get much more attention if you can visit or call the office during the second or third week of the month.

Every market area has seasonality. A suburban enclave where schools are important to young families and in college towns that adhere to an academic calendar, everyone wants to close on their new house by Labor Day. A beach resort has a lot of closings before the Fourth of July.  Determine when the local market is busy and avoid contacting or visiting a registry during those months.

Whether you are visiting in person, or calling or emailing about a problem encountered using the website, respect the rhythms and seasons, and you and the Registrar of Deeds will be less frustrated.

Wisdom Wednesday – Warranty v. Quitclaim Deeds

A deed is a written document which transfers real estate ownership from one entity to another. A deed often has one of two labels on the top, Warranty Deed or Quitclaim Deed. What is the difference? Did it make a difference to my ancestors?

In the law, home owners have a bundle of rights.  A warranty deed assures the grantees that the grantors are conveying all the possible rights to the property. Grantors are guaranteeing that they have good, clear title and agreeing to defend the grantee from all title claims.  A Quitclaim Deed conveys to the grantee only the rights the grantors have which may or may not be the complete bundle. So if the seller’s title isn’t clear, the buyer’s title isn’t clear.

A Warranty Deed is also referred to as a ‘full covenant and warranty deed’ or a ‘general warranty deed.’ It is used extensively in the U.S. because some considered it the best deed a grantee can receive.  In my home region, western Massachusetts, almost all property sales are via a warranty deed, while in the City of Boston, a quitclaim deed is most prevalent. E. Wade Hone, a Utah resident, in his book for genealogists, Land and Property Research in the United States, states that quitclaim deeds are the most common type.

This is an example of a warranty deed from 1913 in Lewis and Clark County, Montana. The warranty clause is in the preprinted area below the legal description.

Warranty and Covenant clause is last paragraph.

For all practical purposes in the modern day, both types of deeds adequately convey property. Titles are searched for the past 50 or 60 years, and title insurance is purchased.  Modern home buyers are very well protected from title issues.

There are historic reasons for the two major types of deeds. However, it would be rare to find title issues in our ancestors’ land transactions.

Wisdom Wednesday – Land Records Term – 'Seized'

When people use the word ‘seize’, I think they mean grab or take but with a slightly more negative connotation. When I first saw the word in a land deed, I could see that it had a different legal meaning, different enough to need a comment or two here.  Read the next passage from a late 1800s deed  and see if you can get the other meaning from the context:

“…the estate of said James Damon of which he died seized…together with all the personal property of which the said James Damon died seized.”

 Hampshire MA Registry of Deeds, Book 362 Page 195

It appears to mean that James Damon of Chesterfield, Massachusetts died owning the property.  According to the dictionary that‘s right, the word ‘seize’ can mean “to make someone the legal owner of property or goods.”

I have not seen many modern Massachusetts' deeds use the word, but here is an example from a 2000 deed in Florida. It is part of the covenants and warranty paragraph of a Warranty Deed.

“And the grantor hereby covenants with the said grantee that the grantor is lawfully seized of said land…”

Manatee County FL,  Book 1659 Page 6643

                                                                                                                                        ©2012, Susan Lewis Well

Dower and Curtesy Rights

You may have run into a phrase in a deed such as, ‘and I, Mary Jones, in consideration aforesaid do hereby relinquish my right of dower in the above mentioned property.’ What are dower rights? The concept came to North America with the colonists from English common law. At marriage, a woman’s legal existence was combined with her husband’s. In practice, it meant that real estate purchased during the marriage belonged to the husband. To create balance for this concept, a wife was granted dower rights which prevented a husband from selling property without the wife’s permission. Thus the clause above or one similar would appear in deeds.

Dower rights also granted women legal ownership of a portion of the real estate for the rest of her life, if the husband died first. While the dower portion was governed by each state's statute, it usually ranged from 33 to 50 percent. A woman was also protected from being left out of her husband’s will.  He could increase the share beyond one-third in his will, and some state laws limited the rights of a husband to bequeath less than a one-third share to his widow except in prescribed circumstances.  When the widow died, the real estate was then inherited as designated in her deceased husband's will; she had no rights to sell or bequeath the property independently. She did have rights to income from the dower during her lifetime, including rents and income from crops.

In most states, one-third of a husband's estate is awarded to a widow automatically if he dies without a will (intestate). In many jurisdictions, dower has been replaced by the 'elective share'. In others, statutes expressly provide that a spouse choose among the elective share, the dower, or the provisions of the will.  Thus most modern deeds have no dower clause.

A husband's corresponding right of inheritance was called curtesy. In England and early America, a widower could use 100 percent of his deceased wife's property (real estate which she acquired and held in her own name) until his own death, but could not sell or transfer it to anyone but children of his wife. Today in the United States, instead of using curtesy rights, most jurisdictions explicitly require that one-third to one-half of a wife's property be given outright to her husband at her death, if she dies without a will.

Today married couples hold land in some form of joint ownership that specifies how property is divided or inherited at the death of one partner.

©2011, Susan Lewis Well