I've recently been cleaning up the Pulaski Co., VA, patent file in our Deed Data Pool.
Many of the county's patents have been
placed pretty well so I was wondering if I could confirm their location via Google Earth.
Would the parcels match up with modern
crop and tree lines?
If you use our background maps, version 4.0 of DeedMapper supports File>>Save
As>>KML file, which creates a KML file that can be
read by Google Earth. All visible DeedMapper parcels get converted into KML format and
placed in the file. When you open a KML
file in Google Earth you see the parcels against an aerial photo backdrop. Note, your
parcels must be displayed on our background
maps for this to work. [If you have lots of parcels but only want to export a few to
Google Earth, first select the desired parcels
with the mouse, then use View>>Filter and set it to display only the selected
parcels.]
I didn't spend a lot of time on this but I did find a small number of parcels that fit
pretty well. In most cases only some of the
parcel lines matched the modern land because those huge old patents were divided into
pieces, recombined with other pieces, etc.
over the years. All of the parcels needed some fine tuning on their precise location in
DeedMapper for them to really sit where
Google Earth says they belong.
If you have Google Earth installed I think you'll enjoy looking at the following file.
You should just be able to double click it.
www.DirectLineSoftware.com/pulaski.kml
Be sure that Google Earth's timeline slide control at the top of the window is set to
display the full range of dates.
Steve Broyles
