Pat- I am routing this through list because so many people seem to ask the same question. There are several things one can get from old deeds: wife's first name, date of execution (you know the grantor was alive at that time and place), description "by metes and bounds" ( Beginning at a hickory tree on the bank of the creek, thence so many rods, perches, feet by line of property now or formerly of Smith, North 0 degrees etc. ), neighboring landowners (see description), reference to prior title ("Being the same property which the Commonwelth of Pennsylvania patented to John Jones, the grantor herein,etc."), and others..One hits the jackpot if the deed is conveying the interests of heirs to the property; it usually notes the date of death of the decedent, and by necessity names the heirs and their spouses. An interesting procedure is the acknowledgement of the signatures of the grantors by a notary or justice of the peace. It goes like this, for example, "Before me, a ! notary public in and for the County of Westmoreland, township of Rostraver comes John Smith,etc.". In the old days it was not unusual for some of the signers of the deed to live a good distance away from the place where the property was located. Rather than to travel a long distance to execute the deed, they had the deed messengered to them and had a LOCAL notary/justice administer the acknowledgement of their signatures to them and their spouses. THIS will tell you where they lived at the time, at least to township level. Sometimes they did travel for a family reunion or sharing out session. THEN you can't tell if they are all local or not. Now for the Recorder of Deeds office. By statute, if two innocent ( no fraud on their part) parties turn up with properly executed deeds to the same , or parts of the same, property, the PRESUMPTION is that the first one recorded gets the gold. Caveat: lawyers get rich overturning presumptions. Now, deeds are indexed by the name! s of the sellers and the buyers (grantors and grantees). In the case of patents (The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's deed out), Pennsylvania is the grantor, and the (backward) buck stops there. Theoretically if the lawyers have done their job properly, one can start in the middle of the chain of title and work either backwards or forward in time. It does not take long to learn the indexing system in Pennsylvania. The clerks at the Recorders Office usually are happy to give lessons. VERY FEW of the old deeds are on line, but if you know the Deed Book and page numbers, you can order photocopies of deeds in Westmoreland to have for your very own. Be aware that the early ones are in cursive, so that "f"s are not always "foofed", but " esssed" instead. But the point is that (like a good joke) you've got to be there or hire someone to do the job. In the legal biz, these people are called title searchers, and they work for title companies. If you've bought property in Pennsylva! nia, you've probably bought title insurance and the leg work for the companies assurance of your title is done by them. Title searchers usually dont want to bother with genies- it doesn't pay as well as searching for companies. So the question is -can a list like ours refer to a professional? I don't know. Most lists have rules against commercials. In this case, I, in Idaho, could sure use a professional (paid) searcher. What say all? Allen D. McCrady