In my quest for old land plat maps, Loretta Kelling replied with the following information. I appreciate the info and especially that she is including "plat" in the index. It will surely be helpful to many people. Virginia Greene I appreciate your post regarding the old land plats. I am sure one reason > > for it was that everything was described by metes and bounds instead of by > > surveys. There is a old book of all the plats done by the district surveyor > > Elzy Keeling.The book is in the Coffee Co. Library in Manchester and another > > in the State Library and Archives in Nashville. The limitation of it is > > that it shows every plat as an individual plat and you have no idea how it > > actually laid in the county relative to neighbors and their plats. The > > relevance of your difficulty to me is that I am in the process of indexing a > > book of Chancery Court Minutes from 1857-1860 for Bedford County. This book > > has not previously been indexed and the task is difficult. However, > > whenever I have come across plats in the records, I had decided to index the > > word plat and give the family name of the family whose land was being > > divided as that is usually the case when a plat appears in those minute > > books. After a petition to divide the land, sometimes referred to as > > Exparte petition, the land was divided among heirs. Sometimes a plat > > showing how the land was divided will appear in the minute books which is > > helpful if the land then was passed to a son in law witha different name. > > Your difficulty in locating plats confirms my decision to list the plats in > > the index. Thank you. > > > > Loretta