Hi Listers, This was on the Oregon Trail list, and I thought many of you might be able to use the info. I found my great grandfather, Theodore Warner Boone, in Idaho. I found his son, Robert William Boone, in Montana. I sent for and received copies of their land patent applications as well as descriptions of their properties. Really Cool! The applications have their actual signatures. Geraldine Ingersoll Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 19:39:15 -0700 From: Jim Tompkins <[email protected]> To: [email protected] How to do a BLM (Bureau of Land Management) search. Go to http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/ on your internet server. 1. When the GLO/BLM homepage comes up there are several choices on the left edge. Choose the one labeled "Search Land Patents" (They will probably ask your zip code for their records) 2. There should be a column with boxes to fill and a couple of pull down windows with a "Search" button at the top and bottom. 3. You need to pull down the name of a state. The minimum info you have to provide is a surname. The more boxes you fill, the fewer records they check. (I suggest start with the minimum - more names to choose from and possibly a claim you didn't know about.) For example if I pull down Oregon and type my last name (Tompkins) and press either "Search" button I will get 44 names on 2 pages. (Three are my ancestors.) If I had pulled down Oregon, typed my last name, and pulled down Clackamas County, and hit "Search" I get only two names (my ancestors husband and wife). 4. Choose any of the resulting patentee names and press the"Details" button to its left. You will get a Patent Description including names on the patent, patent number, date of issue, whether it was a donation, homestead or purchase, etc. 5. If you press the tab labeled "Legal Land Description" you get a description in surveyors terms including Township & Range, sections, county, etc. With knowledge of reading surveyors maps you can determine exactly where the claim was and its general shape. 6. If the Patentee name is in Blue regular type you can press the tab labeled "Document Image" and get a photocopy of the actual patent certificate sent to the patentee, complete with presidential signature. If it is in Red italics there is not an image to view and that choice will be disabled. You will be given several choices of how the image is to be transmitted. The fastest choice is "Small GIF". If you have not heard of an image type, you probably don't know how to process images and vice versa. Other image types give better quality images (and are accordingly slower to download - with DSL it took from 18 to 24 seconds to download, that would be up to 5 minutes on a regular modem). Warning: If you try downloading an image type which your computer cannot receive it will send your browser in circles and you'll have to physically back out or force quit. PS Don't fret, they also provide instructions on the right side of each search page. jim