Has anyone viewed any of these films? Why are they called the Burned Records when these are from after the fire? I may need to view deeds for Chicago, so I was checking familysearch first. https://www.familysearch.org/eng/library/fhlcatalog/supermainframeset.asp?display=titledetails&titleno=250395&disp=Burned+record+series+books%2C+1871-193%20%20&columns=*,0,0 Debbie

Has anyone had experience at researching land and property records for Chicago? The way I understand it is thus: Start with a legal description of the property. A street address is not enough. Naturally, I will be going through the city directories. I t's possible I will not find an address there. Other possible sources for a street address are probate and divorce records. We know the family had a house in Chicago, but we don't know where. They were wealthy, but we don't even know a neighborhood. We do not know when they bought it or sold it. We don't know if they had it built or bought an existing house. I know that we would get the legal description from the county treasurer's office, the county clerk's office, or the city of Chicago Bureau of Maps and Plats. Once we have the legal description, we take that to the Tract Dept at the Recorder of Deeds. The tract books contain information on the property. Of course, this will involve reading, studying, copying and money. The whole process is covered in "Chicago & Cook County A Guide to Research" by Loretto Dennis Szucs. There are also some films through LDS. I don't know how helpful they will be. https://www.familysearch.org/eng/library/fhlcatalog/supermainframeset.asp?display=titledetails&titleno=250395&disp=Burned+record+series+books%2C+1871-193%20%20&columns=*,0,0 Anyone have any advice on how to handle this? I plan on using the book as a guide, but does anyone have any personal experience with this? Good? Bad? How long did it take? That kind of thing. I imagine this will be a lengthy process, but if we achieve success, that is what's important. Debbie