At the Delaware Archives. Problem is that the colonial era survey and patent records for the lower three counties belong to Pennsylvania because they were part of Pennsylvania until Delaware emerged as an independent entity at the start of the American Revolution. Some of the colonial period land records were eventually handed over, somewhat begrudgingly, by Pennsylvania to Delaware, but not in a comprehensive way. There didn't seem to have been a very collegial attitude between the two states concerning archival records back then. In any case, there is an inherent difficulty in that the patents and surveys for all Pennsylvania counties are mixed together in volumes covering the entire Province, so you can't separate out just the ones belonging to the lower three counties. This can be resolved by having good indexes for the lower three counties and access to microfilm or online images of the PA patents volumes. The images are available - the problem is the indexes. The PA Patents Register Index, which you can access at the PA Archives website, does contain entries for some tracts in Delaware, but clearly not all. I just did a sampling on the patentees with surnames begining M-N-O-P and found 46 entries for tracts in New Castle, 11 in Kent and 0 in Sussex County, for the period 1682 to 1776. M-N-O-P represents about 18% of the full index (based on number of pages) so this would extraplate to totals of about 255 tracts for New Castle, 61 for Kent, and nothing for Sussex in the index altogether. Clearly this is nowhere near the actual number of patented land tracts for those counties. By comparison I know John Lyon has more than 1700 tracts in his database just for the parts of Sussex county that were originally claimed by Maryland. When Pennsylvania Archives compiled the Warrants Registers for PA counties they could easily have made registers for the lower three counties at the same time, but this wasn't done. I have not seen anything comparable developed by or for Delaware. You can go to the Archives at Dover and search through their card file indexes for land records but I always come away with the suspicion that there are a lot of warrant, survey and patent records that aren't compiled there. I have a particular interest in the Scotch-Irish settlers in New Castle County and am not finding them in the records as much as I would expect. Certainly there are major problems with the land records card file indexes at MD State Archives, as John Lyon has pointed out numerous times. One might suspect similar issues in Delaware. For Maryland, however, you have the colonial era Rent Rolls and Debt Books which provide convenient listings of all patented properties in each county, and an independent way of knowing what is supposed to be there. There is nothing like this for Delaware, as far as I know, so it is hard to be confident that the DE Archives land records indexes contain entries for all the original land tracts. If I am missing something here, I would be very glad to hear from anyone who has worked the Delaware colonial land records and has suggestions to offer. John Polk Havre de Grace, MD ======================================================= ----- Original Message ----- From: "marjorie adams" <marjea@wildblue.net> To: <lower-delmarva-roots@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 9:49 AM Subject: Re: [LDR] Fw: Mdlandrec.net Issue 22841 If only they had included the "lower three counties" in this index So, if one wants to check a name from there, where would one start? ======================================================= On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 2:00 AM, John Polk <jfpolk@comcast.net> wrote: Well they say comparisons are odious, but with the foregoing comments I can't help but point to the PA Archives website where you can pull up all the PA original surveys, or rather the later transcriptions thereof, with just two clicks, if you have the volume and page reference. To see how easy this is just go to http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/Bah/DAM/rg/di/r17-114CopiedSurveyBooks/r17-114Ma inInterfacePage.htm> They also have all of their county warrants registers on line at http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/Bah/DAM/rg/di/r17-88WarrantRegisters/r17-88AllCo untiesInterface.htm If you are looking for the first settlers in any county you will find them here, alphabetized by first letter of surname, then listed chronological. - If only they had included the "lower three counties" in this index : John Polk

John Polk, I can't help YOU but THANK you for your analysis of the situation. If I understand it correctly the short answer would be: you have to go to the DE or PA Archives and dig deeper than their indexes. That is a long distance trip for me; I' m interested in early Sussex patents, perhaps north of the Indian River that were not recorded in MD, ones that John Lyons doesn't have in his voluminous files. Marj Adams On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 12:47 AM, John Polk <jfpolk@comcast.net> wrote: > At the Delaware Archives. > > Problem is that the colonial era survey and patent records for the lower > three counties belong to Pennsylvania because they were part of > Pennsylvania > until Delaware emerged as an independent entity at the start of the > American > Revolution. Some of the colonial period land records were eventually handed > over, somewhat begrudgingly, by Pennsylvania to Delaware, but not in a > comprehensive way. There didn't seem to have been a very collegial attitude > between the two states concerning archival records back then. In any case, > there is an inherent difficulty in that the patents and surveys for all > Pennsylvania counties are mixed together in volumes covering the entire > Province, so you can't separate out just the ones belonging to the lower > three counties. This can be resolved by having good indexes for the lower > three counties and access to microfilm or online images of the PA patents > volumes. The images are available - the problem is the indexes. > > The PA Patents Register Index, which you can access at the PA Archives > website, does contain entries for some tracts in Delaware, but clearly not > all. I just did a sampling on the patentees with surnames begining M-N-O-P > and found 46 entries for tracts in New Castle, 11 in Kent and 0 in Sussex > County, for the period 1682 to 1776. M-N-O-P represents about 18% of the > full index (based on number of pages) so this would extraplate to totals of > about 255 tracts for New Castle, 61 for Kent, and nothing for Sussex in the > index altogether. Clearly this is nowhere near the actual number of > patented > land tracts for those counties. By comparison I know John Lyon has more > than > 1700 tracts in his database just for the parts of Sussex county that were > originally claimed by Maryland. > > When Pennsylvania Archives compiled the Warrants Registers for PA counties > they could easily have made registers for the lower three counties at the > same time, but this wasn't done. I have not seen anything comparable > developed by or for Delaware. You can go to the Archives at Dover and > search > through their card file indexes for land records but I always come away > with > the suspicion that there are a lot of warrant, survey and patent records > that aren't compiled there. I have a particular interest in the > Scotch-Irish > settlers in New Castle County and am not finding them in the records as > much > as I would expect. Certainly there are major problems with the land records > card file indexes at MD State Archives, as John Lyon has pointed out > numerous times. One might suspect similar issues in Delaware. For Maryland, > however, you have the colonial era Rent Rolls and Debt Books which provide > convenient listings of all patented properties in each county, and an > independent way of knowing what is supposed to be there. There is nothing > like this for Delaware, as far as I know, so it is hard to be confident > that > the DE Archives land records indexes contain entries for all the original > land tracts. If I am missing something here, I would be very glad to hear > from anyone who has worked the Delaware colonial land records and has > suggestions to offer. > > John Polk > Havre de Grace, MD > > > ======================================================= > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "marjorie adams" <marjea@wildblue.net> > To: <lower-delmarva-roots@rootsweb.com> > Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 9:49 AM > Subject: Re: [LDR] Fw: Mdlandrec.net Issue 22841 > > > If only they had included the "lower three counties" in this index > > So, if one wants to check a name from there, where would one start? > > ======================================================= > > On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 2:00 AM, John Polk <jfpolk@comcast.net> wrote: > Well they say comparisons are odious, but with the foregoing comments I > can't help but point to the PA Archives website where you can pull up all > the PA original surveys, or rather the later transcriptions thereof, with > just two clicks, if you have the volume and page reference. To see how > easy this is just go to > > http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/Bah/DAM/rg/di/r17-114CopiedSurveyBooks/r17-114Ma > inInterfacePage.htm<http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/Bah/DAM/rg/di/r17-114CopiedSurveyBooks/r17-114MainInterfacePage.htm> > > > > They also have all of their county warrants registers on line at > > http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/Bah/DAM/rg/di/r17-88WarrantRegisters/r17-88AllCo > untiesInterface.htm<http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/Bah/DAM/rg/di/r17-88WarrantRegisters/r17-88AllCountiesInterface.htm> > If you are looking for the first settlers in any county you will find them > here, alphabetized by first letter of surname, then listed chronological. > - If only they had included the "lower three counties" in this index : > > John Polk > > > > > > *************************************** > 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 >