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

Great idea, Sarah. Perhaps a wiki would be one way to do it -- or via the FamilySearch wiki. I am happy to say that the big city where my wife's ancestors concentrated (Pittsburgh) stuck with grantor-grantee. Harold On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 8:50 PM, Sarah A. V. Kirby <kirby-s@sbcglobal.net>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 > -- Harold Henderson midwestroots.net Research, Writing, and Brickwall Dismantling from Northwest Indiana Regularly Researching at the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center Certified Genealogist (SM) No. 1029 Certified Genealogist and CG are proprietary service marks of the Board for Certification of Genealogists® used by the Board to identify its program of genealogical competency evaluation and used under license by the Board’s associates.