Greetings from Canada, I have the homestead land description of an ancestor's brother and am having trouble translating it into something I can use. Before I dive into the details, I'd like to make it clear that I am quite familiar with the system used on the Canadian prairies, and while the U.S. system shares a lot of similarities with the Canadian system, it turns out that there are a number of differences which are combining to stop me dead. The land description is Secn 1 - Rg 73W - Twp 129N - 5P.M. I've been able to locate the 5th Principal Meridian, and thus can locate the 73rd Range west of it. But where is the baseline that Township 129 is North of? I've spent a couple of hours searching the web but can't find a description of how or where baselines on the American central prairies were determined. Were they on lines of latitude? Tips, hints, clues gratefully accepted. Darn, but you end up learning about the weirdest/neatest stuff doing genealogy. Donna Hrynkiw Researching (in this case) the brothers Felix (b. 1870), Josef (b. unknown), and Franz LUTZ (b. 1880), who all lived or owned land in or near North and South Dakota between about 1890 and 1910. I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and give the wrong answers. "Donna Hrynkiw" <Donna.Hrynkiw@kwantlen.ca>