Jean, Regarding your last sentence: look at the deed for your own property. If you don't live in an apartment, subdivision, or condo describing EXACTLY were you live will take several lines. If you live in an apartment, subdivision, or condo, try describing EXACTLY where you live without using the name of the complex or subdivision. I have worked in surveying and currently work in assessing and bad land descriptions are a nightmare and what lawsuits are made of. Proverbs 22:28 Jay ----- Original Message ---- From: "jfstms@bellsouth.net" <jfstms@bellsouth.net> To: lower-delmarva-roots@rootsweb.com Sent: Saturday, February 7, 2009 10:30:48 AM Subject: Re: [LDR] Old abbreviations and their [sometimes difficult todetermine] meanings Thanks for the link, Dave. The article is interesting . . . paid by the word . . . that explains a lot. I have often wondered why it took a paragraph to say someone sold land to someone else. Jean -------------- Original message from "Dave & Jane Kearney" <kearneyd@erols.com>: -------------- I enjoyed Dorothee Hughes Carousso's article, "Colonial Handwriting Hazards and Hints," which can be found in the Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine, vol. 30, no. 4 (1978) at p. 227 et seq. You hopefully can find the magazine and article available for reading on-line on google books at http://books.google.com/books?id=BcJ1jgnNp6sC&pg=PA235&lpg=PA235&dq=%2B%22coloni al+abbreviations%22&source=bl&ots=eiXz79KEp-&sig=xxTFDUpjTr2_ZvDIvd0GdI099FY&hl= > en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPA227,M1, > > Carousso even addresses colonial abbreviations on pages 235 & 236. > (As for those apparently out of place, odd, weird, and often seemingly indecipherable names, numbers, figures, dates, places, words, and letters, and so forth, I try not to toss them out the window too quickly. Sometimes some of > them mean something. And I have fun trying to figure them out in any event.) > > Dave K > *************************************** > QUESTIONS about POSTING GUIDELINES, SUBSCRIBING or UNSUBSCRIBING? > Visit The Lower DelMarVa Roots Mailing List FAQ: > http://www.tyaskin.com/handley/ldrfaq.htm > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > LOWER-DELMARVA-ROOTS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message *************************************** QUESTIONS about POSTING GUIDELINES, SUBSCRIBING or UNSUBSCRIBING? Visit The Lower DelMarVa Roots Mailing List FAQ: http://www.tyaskin.com/handley/ldrfaq.htm ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to LOWER-DELMARVA-ROOTS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message
Jay, I have no problem with describing where the property is located. I was talking about the excessive use of words to describe something simple. Here is the quote from the referenced article: "he never used one word if he could stretch out the synonyms to twenty." An example in writing a deed he " would never record a simple agreement to 'sell' a property. According to the scribe, the seller of the property "hath given granted bargained sold released & confirmed and by these presents doth give grant bargain sell release and confirm." I have seen this dozens of times. Jean ----- Original Message ----- From: "Thompson Jay" <jaydarlene@sbcglobal.net> To: <lower-delmarva-roots@rootsweb.com> Sent: Saturday, February 07, 2009 11:55 AM Subject: Re: [LDR] Old abbreviations and their [sometimes difficulttodetermine] meanings > Jean, > > Regarding your last sentence: look at the deed for your own property. If > you don't live in an apartment, subdivision, or condo describing EXACTLY > were you live will take several lines. If you live in an apartment, > subdivision, or condo, try describing EXACTLY where you live without using > the name of the complex or subdivision. I have worked in surveying and > currently work in assessing and bad land descriptions are a nightmare and > what lawsuits are made of. > > Proverbs 22:28 > > Jay > > > > ----- Original Message ---- > From: "jfstms@bellsouth.net" <jfstms@bellsouth.net> > To: lower-delmarva-roots@rootsweb.com > Sent: Saturday, February 7, 2009 10:30:48 AM > Subject: Re: [LDR] Old abbreviations and their [sometimes difficult > todetermine] meanings > > Thanks for the link, Dave. The article is interesting . . . paid by the > word . . . that explains a lot. I have often wondered why it took a > paragraph to say someone sold land to someone else. > > Jean > -------------- Original message from "Dave & Jane Kearney" > <kearneyd@erols.com>: -------------- > > I enjoyed Dorothee Hughes Carousso's article, "Colonial Handwriting > Hazards and Hints," which can be found in the Pennsylvania Genealogical > Magazine, vol. 30, no. 4 (1978) at p. 227 et seq. You hopefully can find > the magazine and article available for reading on-line on google books at > http://books.google.com/books?id=BcJ1jgnNp6sC&pg=PA235&lpg=PA235&dq=%2B%22coloni > al+abbreviations%22&source=bl&ots=eiXz79KEp-&sig=xxTFDUpjTr2_ZvDIvd0GdI099FY&hl= >> en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPA227,M1, >> >> Carousso even addresses colonial abbreviations on pages 235 & 236. >> (As for those apparently out of place, odd, weird, and often seemingly >> indecipherable names, numbers, figures, dates, places, words, and >> letters, and so forth, I try not to toss them out the window too quickly. >> Sometimes some of >> them mean something. And I have fun trying to figure them out in any >> event.) >> >> Dave K >> *************************************** >> QUESTIONS about POSTING GUIDELINES, SUBSCRIBING or UNSUBSCRIBING? >> Visit The Lower DelMarVa Roots Mailing List FAQ: >> http://www.tyaskin.com/handley/ldrfaq.htm >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >> LOWER-DELMARVA-ROOTS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' >> without >> the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > *************************************** > QUESTIONS about POSTING GUIDELINES, SUBSCRIBING or UNSUBSCRIBING? > Visit The Lower DelMarVa Roots Mailing List FAQ: > http://www.tyaskin.com/handley/ldrfaq.htm > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > LOWER-DELMARVA-ROOTS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' > without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > *************************************** > QUESTIONS about POSTING GUIDELINES, SUBSCRIBING or UNSUBSCRIBING? > Visit The Lower DelMarVa Roots Mailing List FAQ: > http://www.tyaskin.com/handley/ldrfaq.htm > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > LOWER-DELMARVA-ROOTS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' > without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message
From: Schroeder jfstms@bellsouth.net Jay, I have no problem with describing where the property is located. I was talking about the excessive use of words to describe something simple. Here is the quote from the referenced article: "he never used one word if he could stretch out the synonyms to twenty." An example in writing a deed he " would never record a simple agreement to 'sell' a property. According to the scribe, the seller of the property "hath given granted bargained sold released & confirmed and by these presents doth give grant bargain sell release and confirm." I have seen this dozens of times. Jean ___________________________________ Yes, or thousands. The patents and deeds represent two different forms of boilerplate, each with its own set of boilerplater rules leading to guaranteed lifetime employment for clerks and other bureaucrats – and the lawyers. The irritant in the ancient land records is how little effort and how insubstantial the requirement was in an indiscriminate metes and bounds system to describe *where* the land was, and how much *was* devoted to repeating the endless blather of formulaic construction that never varied from instrument to instrument – or rather varied only a little each decade. Some patents, for example, might describe a starting tree "near" a River, then proceed to define 150 courses which perambulate across the landscape around obviously existing properties, but never mention whose or what, or anything else .. It makes for enormous trouble in trying to solve both placement questions and the reconstruction of the neighborhood. Yet that same patent will include a full page or two of perfectly repetitive description of the legal basis – identical, word-for-word to all patents in the period. The actual useful data in an average deed or patent which yields "meaning" may be less (even much less) than 10% of the verbiage. Full transcriptions of these things are just work for the idle, who – I know from my correspondence – often get confused, imagining thing such as that their ancestor got his land directly from the Lord Baltimore, who is – after all – named prominently and often in the boilerplate. The less inspirational truth – Joe bought rights to land from the Land Office or a private party on a given date which was laid out for him in this place on another date, and he got his patent on it sometime later – is in a few sentences and the course descriptions. John ________________________________________________________________________ Email message sent from CompuServe - visit us today at http://www.cs.com
Jay wrote: >>> ... bad land descriptions are a nightmare and what lawsuits are made of. ... Proverbs 22:28 <<< ________________ Under some circumstances, particularly given enough time, I would think that some anicent "written mistakes" could themselves become in a sense the ancient landmarks that "our fathers" have placed, inadvertantly. For instance, a land boundary misconstrued on the ground for years, in some settings, depending on the application of law, etc. might become the "real" boundary at some point, at least with respect to private parties. Dave K.
From: Dave Kearney <kearneyd@erols.com> Jay wrote: >>> ... bad land descriptions are a nightmare and what lawsuits are ade of. ... Proverbs 22:28 <<< _______________ >Under some circumstances, particularly given enough time, I would think that ome anicent "written mistakes" could themselves become in a sense the ancient andmarks that "our fathers" have placed, inadvertantly. For instance, a land oundary misconstrued on the ground for years, in some settings, depending on he application of law, etc. might become the "real" boundary at some point, at east with respect to private parties. __________________________________________ I have several examples of precisely this. A clerical error from an original surveyor submission in the 1600s was sometimes repeated in the 1700s, overlooking the correctly-construed boundaries of neighbors. Later surveyors continued to crib from the mistake. Modern boundaries (seen on tax maps) perpetuate the situation. In some such cases led to vacancies – even now unrecognized and never patented, where no one has had occasion to conduct a resurvey. Other imprecisions in ancient surveys have left little strips or other odd holes unclaimed, though I doubt the owners are aware of the inaccuracies. A few acres here and there add up. The Maryland land records are often so confused that resolving these little problems does require endless legal bickering. Note who profits (again). It ain't the blameless citizen. John ________ ________________________________________________________________ Email message sent from CompuServe - visit us today at http://www.cs.com