is this 1850 -60 or 1950 - 1960 Paul ----- Original Message ----- From: "George & Shiela Irwin" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, May 23, 2005 8:51 PM Subject: Re: [ILLOGAN] Abstracts > Following up on Cheryl Rothwell's notes on title abstracts: > > I have recently been doing some genealogy work using the same data source in > a different way, and thought the procedure might be of interest to some > readers of this site. My objective was to trace land ownership of my > immigrant ancestor and his 7 children during their first 50-60 years in > Illinois, rather than to follow a single piece of property through all > changes in ownership. So I was looking at a cross section over a number of > abstracts -- perhaps an expensive purchase from an abstractor firm. > > You can, of course, do your own work. The records are public, in the County > Recorder of Deeds office. It is just a matter of searching through them and > copying the appropriate documents. It can be an interesting genealogy > exercise, but very time consuming, and you have to travel to the Recorder's > office to use the records. > > The saving grace is that it only has to be done once, if done without error. > That is the benefit of an abstract of title -- you are the second purchaser > of work someone has already paid for -- provided it addresses the question > you are interested in.. > > The technique is the same as in preparing an abstract. You advance or > retrogress in time, stepwise from one transaction to the next. You start > out with a buyer or seller (a grantor or a grantee) in a transaction on a > piece of property. It can be the most recent owner of a property or the > original owner. (You can search either backward or forward). The county > records, likely not computerized until recently, record actual deed > documents in the order they were filed, probably in large volumes in a vault > in the office of the Recorder of Deeds. Particularly in early years, the > date of filing can be well after the date the deed is signed. > > The Recorder creates two supplemental indexes at the time the deed is filed, > and these are the source volumes you use to find deed documents. These > indexes record each deed transaction in two places. The first index is by > the name of the seller, and is called the grantor index. The second index > is by name of the buyer, and is the grantee index. In each, the names are > in order the deeds were filed, and contain a reference to the volume number > and page where the actual deed is located. The indexes also contain the > name of the other party to the transaction, the price, and a brief > description of the property. > > There will be a deed book, a grantor index, and a grantee index for each > time period. The number of years included depends on the volume of deed > transactions handled. Within this time period, the indexes may be subdivided > with different sections for each first letter of the last name, to simplify > searches. But you still have the items within a section in order of date > filed, so searching is necessary. > > The process, once you have a beginning or an ending owner for a targeted > property is to find out when they bought/sold that same property, by looking > through the grantor or grantee indexes. This can be carried on repeatedly, > guided by the question you are answering. > > There is also a filing of mortgage and chattel deeds on a property, which > can be used to trace financing on a piece of property, and when the > financing was paid off (released). These may also be recorded in the grantor > and grantee indexes, but the reference will be to a volume and page in the > mortgage books. > > I have found that a computer spreadsheet is essential to organizing the > notes taken during repeated forays to the Recorder of Deeds office, in order > to create a timeline. As Cheryl Rothwell notes in describing the contents > of a single abstract on a piece of property, the individual documents copied > from the deed book can be quite revealing. It is equally informative in > tracing the history of an immigrant German farmer and his family from 1848 > to the early 1900s. While deeds for purchase of a property are often in > the name of the husband only, sale deeds ordinarily contain name of the > spouse, because she has dower rights that must be handled. Such deeds, along > with estate filings, also may have identification of descendants or > ancestors that you have been seeking. > > Has anyone else on this list worked with this data source? > > > > ==== ILLOGAN Mailing List ==== > To unsubscribe from the Logan County List if you are in mail mode, send to [email protected] If you are receiving messages in the digest mode, send to [email protected] > > >