I'm new here, and swore to myself I would listen longer before I dove in. But I just had to. I find land records so valuable! And websites are not great sources, but they can be incredible finding aids. First, a lot of big cities do have indices searchable by grantor/grantee. Just indirectly, usually through the county. When you head to the repository for originals, their indexing systems may be entirely different, but more information is available before you go there. You have to head for the government websites, and all are a little different. Detroit records, including recent ones, are searchable by name through the Wayne County Recorder of Deeds site. This then provides the liber and page number, the reception dates, entry dates, etc, for individual deeds. So are Chicago's through the Cook County Recorder of Deeds site (click 'search criteria'). That provides the 'pin number' to access the the history of the property and related documents as it changed hands. Lake Co IL also seems to have a friendlier and searchable site, but they wanted $5 for one day access. I wasn't willing to pay just to see what they did there.... For older land research, I have found the glorecords.blm.gov site invaluable! It is limited in that it only covers the original grantee/warrant/patent, and does not include the original colonies, or states directly derived from them. Different surveying scheme. But most of the country is included. Searches by name. And by then searching by township, range, section, etc, you can then 'map' the surrounding owners of your ancestor's property. I have found so many cousins, in-laws, old neighbors that moved to the same area.... ... Wasn't intended to be, originally, but this seems to be related to the "digging in anyway" part of Sarah's note. On Mon, 3 Dec 2012 18:50:09 -0800 (PST), you wrote: >I'm weird - I nearly started my genealogy with land records. I think they were >third after census and vital. Mainly because they were readily accessible - I >still have relatives in locations near over 200 years of ancestors. > >However, big city records - specifically Detroit and Chicago - intimidate me. In >both locations it is because they don't use grantee/grantor indices as the entry >point. Lake County, Illinois is similar (at least for recent records). Instead >they use a variant of the property description/property identification number to >index records. The intimidating part - if I knew the description I wouldn't be >looking!!! (At least some of the time.) > > >It would be great to have a list of locales that don't use grantee/grantor - and >then have a pile of folks attack making detailed instructions for digging in >anyway. > > -------------------- >Sarah A. V. Kirby >sarah@vandeventer.net (primary) >kirby-s@sbcglobal.net (alternate) >LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahavkirby >The Transitional Genealogists List was created to provide a supportive environment for genealogists to learn best practices as they transition to professional level work. Please respect the kind intentions of this list. >------------------------------- >To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to TRANSITIONAL-GENEALOGISTS-FORUM-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message