What's The Buzz at ncestry.com This database is an index to land warrants in Pennsylvania. While it includes no images, it does list the name of the person associated with the warrant, the date, acreage, and location of the land. A land warrant authorized an official survey of a particular tract of land that an individual or other entity wanted to claim or purchase. While it initiated the title process, the warrant did not confer title to the land. The Land Office of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania traces its beginnings back to 1682. This index was created from records at the Pennsylvania State Archives and indexes the warrants from all 67 counties in Pennsylvania, beginning in 1733, when warrant registers were first kept. Remember that county boundaries can change over time, and a warrant will be associated with the county as it was on the date of the warrant. Names: The names on the warrants were handwritten based on what had been written on the warrant application-usually just a small scrap of paper. The person filling out the warrant sometimes couldn't read the writing, resulting in frequent errors in spelling. Many of the warrant applicants were illiterate, so the application was prepared by someone else, often a local justice of the peace. In these cases, the spelling is strictly phonetic. Sometimes when the clerk preparing the warrant couldn't be sure about the spelling, they would record more than one possible spelling, referring to the alternate spelling as an "alias." An example of this is Hugh "Morthland, alias Northland," who warranted 200 acres in Lancaster County on 14 NOV 1743. Some of the records only give the surnames. These warrants are either recorded as, for example, "Smith & James" In some cases, when the first name of the person is not given, it is replaced with "---" to distinguish the first name from the surname, as in "Smith, --- & --- James." This is to reduce confusion when a name could be either a surname or a given name, as with the surname "James." If only one of the given names is known, it is recorded as "Smith, John & --- James." Two persons with the same surname would be recorded as "Smith, John & James." Some company names are indexed under the letter "T" for names that start "The..." The company "The Uniontown Water Company" is indexed under "T" and not "U" in the warrant registers. Some indexing is strange in the warrant registers. For instance, "Devisees of William Wharton (deceased)" of Bedford County is indexed under the letter "D." The indexing is important because to find the record it is necessary to look under the correct letter as each was only indexed once. This example is only under "D" and not "W." There is more information to be found about this database. If you want to read it, go to Ancestry, bring up the database and read the rest. 8