There was some discussion not long ago on this site about the BLM land
records, and it was noted that some early records seemed to be missing. I
had speculated that maybe some warrents were never patented. It turns out
the records are incomplete for the early entries. The following were
posted on the Brethren rootsweb discussion group.
Phil
Resent-Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 17:31:37 -0700 (PDT)
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Bruce,
The BLM site plans to add these pre-1820 credit purchases at a later,
unspecified date. They also intend to add the military land warrantees
that were kept in another set of books.
The BLM says it is scanning the old records, but humans must be involved
somehow. Can old script be scanned and converted to type-print directly?
Another note: the date on the BLM records is the date the
President/designee signed the document, which may have been a couple of
years later than the grantee entered land in the state.
The credit patents before 1820 can be viewed at a State Archive. For that
matter, the Archives staff (at least in Indiana) regularly responds to
these requests by mail. What they have is the entry in recorded plat books
and hopefully information from the original Register of Receipts, which is
much more specific about the former address/location of the patentee. They
don't have a copy of the document.
Good luck finding your early patents,
Sharon Mills
Resent-Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 17:49:35 -0700 (PDT)
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Subject: BLM early credit purchases
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Bruce and Eric,
Regarding your early Brethren ancestor land entries in OH and other Eastern
States, I've e-mailed the BLM site relative to work on-going by volunteers
at the IN State Archives. According to their staff, the early land entries
will be there if they were cash purchases; however, homesteaders were
allowed to buy on credit up until a date during the legislative session of
1820. At that time the credit purchase ended. Those early credit
purchases were kept in separate records yet to be added to the BLM site.
In reviewing many early land entries at the IN Archives (one of the
volunteers) I have found very few early land entries with patent book
receipt numbers. That tells me almost everyone who bought land early took
advantage of the credit purchase plan. I would guess my early Brethren
would need to be just as frugal as most other homesteaders, and would
therefore take advantage of what had to be generous terms.
So the early records are not lost, It's not hit-or-miss,they (at least the
credit purchases) are awaiting addition to the GLO/BLM site.
Sharon Mills