Deeds of Houston Co., GA: Part 2. When performing Deed research on property in Houston County, GA, the main thing that you will be tracing, is the "legal description" of the property. If you don't know which Land Lot and Land District that your property is located in, you will need to know which road it is near in the county. There are several aerial maps located in the Tax Assessors Office, which will allow you to find which Land Lot that you are looking for. These maps are already on-line at: http://www.assessors.houstoncountyga.org Suppose you are trying to trace a certain parcel of land from the present, all the way back to when it was first drawn from the Land Lottery. You may have various reasons for doing this, among which may be a Title Search. In the State of Georgia, Title Abstracters who perform Title Searches, and then provide this data for attorneys to compile an Abstract of Title, only trace back 50 years. Genealogists sometimes trace property ownership from the present to the past, for reasons of finding the location or *mention* of a cemetery that may no longer appear to be in existence. The first place that you will attempt either of the above types of research, is the Tax Assessors Office. This office is currently located in the Houston County courthouse in Perry, GA on the basement floor level. Currently, you would need to actually visit this office to obtain copies of the Building Record cards to start your research. But, in the near future, these records will be available on-line. You will start your research with the "Building Record". Regardless if there is a building on the property or not, this is the name of the record card. These Building Record cards are located in several metal filing cabinets, and organized according to the Tax Map numbers. Once you determine which Land Lot your particular property is located in, the various Tax Maps will show the property in greater detail. One side of the Building Record contains a partial history of the ownership of the property, for about 50 years, in most cases. The other side of the Building Record contains a floorplan of the home, if there is or was one there in the past 50 years. There is also other data that shows the history of the valuation of the property, as well as if it's value is increasing, decreasing, or static. Genealogists are most concerned with the front of the Building Record because it gives the Deed Books & page numbers, as well as the Plat Books & page numbers. And, you can actually decipher how much the property sold for each time it changed ownership. For example, if the intangible tax is for $3.30, then the property sold for $33,000. The actual Deed may show that the property was sold for "Ten Dollars and other valuable consideration", but this Building Record card has the *real* story on it. If you are searching for a cemetery on a particular piece of property, you will need to check each Deed Book that is listed on the Building Record. Once you get back to the earliest Deed Book mentioned on the Building Record, you will need to finish the *digging* one Deed Book at a time. Sometimes the Deeds are tied together by mentioning the previous owner *and* the Deed Book references. This can save you a lot of time during your Deed searches. If you cannot establish a connection of Deed Book references in your search, it will be necessary to trace the last found owner (Grantee) of the property, and find who he purchased the property from (Grantor). This type of research is performed by going back in time, one Deed Book at a time, and sorting thru the Grantor & Grantee index located at the front of each Deed Book. Occasionally, you will wind up completely lost. If this is the case, you can start your search from the first lucky drawer of the Land Lottery, and carry it forward. However, this could cause some problems if the land has been divided into smaller sections during the early years. In all of my years of Deed research, I have only run across a few properties that I couldn't trace from the present, all the way back to the beginning of the county in 1821. In the basement of the Houston County courthouse, in the same room as the early Deed Books are located, there is a listing of the original lucky drawers of the Land Lottery for Houston County, Georgia. This listing is a photocopy made from the orginal Land Lottery records. It is divided by Land District and Land Lot. I've utilized this listing on several occasions, and it can be very helpful in your research of land records in Houston County. If you don't live near the Houston County courthouse, you can still perform much of your Deed research via LDS Microfilms of the records. There are a considerable amount of microfilms that contain only Deeds and other Land Records. If you haven't already checked it out, there is a detailed listing of these LDS Microfilms, which is currently near the bottom of the Houston County webpage at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~gahousto As I had mentioned in Part 1 of this article about Deeds, the Central Georgia Genealogical Society (CGGS) has published the 1821 to 1840 Houston County, GA Land Record series. There are 5 books in all, and they are extremely helpful in performing the early research of Land Records in Houston County, GA. If your local genealogy library doesn't have these books, infomation about this series of books can be obtained at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~gacggs The books are listed under the Resources portion of this webpage. _______________________________________ William A. Mills Perry, GA [email protected] Houston Co., GA Publications & Research Webpage: http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Forum/8795 ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.