| By tribstar.com,
on 18-10-2009 15:08
|
Favoured : 9 |
Surveying genealogy in ‘metes and bounds’
In the early history of the American colonies, land was not neatly divided into sections, townships and ranges, as it is in Indiana and the later states. Early surveys were done by a procedure known as “metes and bounds.”
This method yielded a patchwork of land claims resembling a crazy quilt where odd-shaped remnants are stitched together in no particular pattern. The states using the metes and bounds method in their land surveys include Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia.
Anyone who has done land research in these metes and bounds states knows the frustration of trying to visualize the land described in the deed. The land survey may start at two blue ash trees and then go “North 20 degrees East 110 poles, coming to a stone marker at the corner of James Chelton’s, then South 72 degrees East 129 poles, coming to 2 dogwoods and a hickory,” and onward until it gets back to the beginning. If the deed doesn’t have a drawing of the land, and most do not, we are usually left in the dark about the shape, size, and orientation of the plot. There are instructions at Internet sites and in books on how to plat the land using a ruler and a protractor, but it’s pretty difficult and time-consuming.
That’s where the deed platter comes in. This is a free utility available that will do all of the work for you. Here is how the site works: First look at your deed and determine how many lines you will need. Each line will contain a direction, a number of degrees, another direction, and a number of poles or some other measurement. Tell the deed platter how many lines will be on the property. Then begin entering each line into the format provided. Each line will have a direction (N, S, E, W) to choose from a drop-down menu, a number of degrees to type in, a bearing (N, S, E, W) to choose from another drop-down menu, and a distance to be typed in. Also under distance you will have a drop-down menu to choose the type of measurement (poles, feet, rods, perches, miles, kilometers, meters, chains, links, furlongs, arpents, varas, or other) that the surveyor used. You can use two distance measurements together, such as 28 poles, 3 feet, by clicking on the plus button to add another measurement. After you get all of your lines entered, you just click on the “plat deed” button, and you instantly get a drawing of the plot of land showing it’s shape and the amount of area it covered. Very nifty.
You also get the option of adding grantor and grantee names, location of the land, book and page number of the original deed, and acreage. On the screen that shows your plat, you can enter the corner and line markers from the deed as well as the neighbors who might be listed, so that your final print-out will have all of the descriptions that were in the original written deed, but now your plat of land is visible and each line and corner is defined. If you want to correct a mistake or add some more data, you can go back and forth between the two screens easily without losing any of your data. If you have any problems, click on help to see the instructions.
The site mentions that sometimes your last line won’t make it all the way back to the beginning point, but that is not a major problem. Surveyors’ equipment at that time period were not as accurate as now and their tools contracted and expanded with the weather.
The Deed Platter
Last update : 24-03-2010 18:59
|
|
|
Home 
Big Monitor Blog 
