Sometimes I think the old protractor and ruler method are better than computers. I did the same kind of drawing and land searches of neighbors several years ago and found several surprises and solved a 20 year old mystery. Surveyors using pole measurements were not stupid. One pole = 16.5 feet. One mile was 320 poles. So, to get the area in acres (if a rectangle) multiply one side by another (in poles) and divide by 160. If not a rectangle, use the old geometry and trig formulas. Use a dashed line to indicate creeks you can't figure, but with the math you can usually figure how much land is on the side with the creek. You may already know this, but if not, I hope it helps. Just out of curiosity - has anyone ever used any software for drawing up tracts of land from deed/patent descriptions? I used a ruler and protractor to try to draw it all to scale, but I found it really frustrating when the descriptions included phrases like "down the creek as it meanders to the beginning". How far was that? Where was that creek? Which way did it go? It's not on any map. Oh, no! Not to a river where the line meanders down that some indefinite distance too! How would software cope with something like that? Can it use the estimated acres and the other surveyed lines to mathematically estimate how long those vague meandering lines should be? Bob Jordan jorbob@msn.com