The Land Registry has announced that it has made the entries from its 1862 register available on the internet free of charge. What is more, one can search by the proprietor's name, unlike the position with the current register. I have not seen a reference to the date to which the register runs, but I presume that it is 1875. The U.R.L. is http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/market-trend-data/digitalarchives I should not expect to see many landowners shown. Registration was voluntary and rather complex. Even now there is little incentive to register one's title voluntarily if it is clearly sound, and before 1875 it could not be registered unless it was sound. Jeremy Wilkes

Perhaps for people familiar with the structure of the registers, the following may be either a statement of the extremely blindingly obvious, or just plain wrong, but the registers are new to me, as it will be to a few others. So: Trying a few searches gives me the following: Searching for a name will find you a proprietor or proprietors and all sorts of notes and observations, including in an example i searched, mention of a marriage certificate. It will find you title number(s), but not the location (parish, county). Remove the name, and search for that title number, and this time you will get a definition of the land to which the title applies, PLUS the name(s) as before. Indeed presumably all pages relating to that title. Perhaps an obvious approach, but not initially to me. I guess it is structured as a primitive database, with one part devoted simply to defining what a title is composed of, and changing little or not at all over time (apart from splitting and possibly merging); the other part concerns itself with the steady procession over time of proprietors, notes and various other observations - some of which seem to consist of arbitrary scraps of paper written in a relatively modern hand! - but not with restating the definition of the land in the title. Doubtless others with better knowledge than mine will be able to refine this somewhat! (I searched for Thomas Pollard, a name of interest to me. Clearly i did not find MY Thomas, and did not expect to, but initially i was puzzled why he would be described as "of Guildford", but Guildford, or Surrey, still did not appear anywhere, nor a description of the land in question. That was when i went back to the search and simply entered the title number, as described above). Perhaps i should have read more before diving in but it is SO tempting! Dave Beakhust On 16 April 2014 16:49:59 Jeremy Wilkes <jeremywilkes@compuserve.com> wrote: > The Land Registry has announced that it has made the entries from its > 1862 > register available on the internet free of charge. What is more, one > can search by the proprietor's name, unlike the position with the > current register. I have not seen a reference to the date to which the > register runs, but I presume that it is 1875. The U.R.L. is > http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/market-trend-data/digitalarchives > > I should not expect to see many landowners shown. Registration was > voluntary and rather complex. Even now there is little incentive to > register one's title voluntarily if it is clearly sound, and before > 1875 it could not be registered unless it was sound. > > Jeremy Wilkes > > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOG-UK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message