Q. What's a land patent?

A. Land patents document the transfer of land ownership from the federal government to individuals. Our land patent records include the information recorded when ownership was transferred.

Q. What are public lands?

A. The term public land means any lands and interest which title is still vested in the Federal Government. The Secretary of the Interior through the BLM administers those lands within the several states.

Q. Where are the Public Land States?

A. Those states created out of the public domain are the lands now embraced in the States of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Q. What are vacant public lands?

A. These are public domain lands that have never left Federal ownership and have not been reserved, withdrawn, dedicated or set aside for a certain purpose. These lands are mostly in the 11 Western states although there are scattered parcels throughout each of the eastern public lands States. The Eastern States field offices in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Jackson, Mississippi have information about lands that may be available for sale.

Q. Why are there no public lands in the thirteen colonies and other states in the east?

A. In the very early years of the United States, the Congress of the Confederation declared it would sell or grant the unclaimed lands in "the West" (given up by the States to the United States) for the common benefit of the United States. The States gave up their claims to what is now Alabama, Michigan, part of Minnesota, Mississippi, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin. The United States could then sell this unclaimed land to raise money for the Treasury. In turn, the United States gave up its claims to any land within the boundaries of the Colonies.

Q. How was the land sold or disposed of?

A. The land was disposed of by the authority of many acts of Congress - sale, homesteads, military warrants for military service, timber culture, mining, etc. One of the primary purposes of these public land laws was to encourage people from the East to move West. In the early 1800's people could buy public land for $1.25 an acre. For a time, they could buy up to 640 acres under this law. The sale of public land under the "Cash Act" is no longer in effect.

Several Military Warrant Acts granted public land to soldiers instead of pay. These acts have been repealed.

The Homestead Act of 1862, allowed people to settle up to 160 acres of public land if they lived on it for five years and grew crops or made improvements. This land did not cost anything per acre, but the settler did pay a filing fee. This act is no longer in effect.

Q. Why is there sometimes a long time period between purchase date and signature date?

A. Due to the tremendous amount of land sold in the 1800's, the General Land Office experienced quite a backlog in the middle part of the 19th century. It was not unusual for several years to pass between the time an individual purchased land from the local land office and the time a patent for that tract was finally signed by the GLO in Washington, D.C.

Q. What is pre-emption?

A. Some patents have the word "Pre-emption"in the upper left-hand corner. "Pre-emption" was a tactful way of saying "squatter". In other words, the settler was physically on the property before the GLO officially sold or even surveyed the tract, and he was thus given a pre-emptive right to acquire the land from the United States.

Q. What about revolutionary war military bounty warrants?

A. The only state we have Revolutionary War-era military bounty warrants for is Ohio (mostly in the Virginia Military District), and even those records for the most part have only a survey number and warrant number on them. A few were issued for rectangularly surveyed sections of land, but most were for metes and bounds surveys in the Virginia Military District.

Q. How can I get Land Entry file information for patents?

A. Land Entry files were created when a person claimed land under an act of Congress. They first had to fill out an application, and sometimes provide other information(marriage or immigration documents), at the local General Land Office. Other documents were also created under that application, like receipts for any payments, or affidavits of occupation, immigration, marriage, and homestead application. Eastern States did not keep these files. They are now the responsibility of the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C. The land entry file information can be obtained from the National Archives. Terms and Field Definitions

Accession Number

One of the two types of codes used to uniquely identify a land patent (the other type of ID code is serial number). An accession number directly relates a document image to the original hardcopy document. It identifies the state, volume number and page number of the original GLO document (valid only for the 13 eastern public domain states, with the exception of Iowa).The format of accession numbers is SSVVVV__.PPP where SS is state code, VVVV is the volume number, and PPP is the page number. For example, LA3010__.023 identifies the document on the 23rd page of volume 301 for Louisiana.See also Accession/Serial Number.

Aliquot Parts

"Aliquot Parts" are a notation used by rectangular survey system to represent the exact subdivision of a section of land. Aliquot parts are described as a half or quarter of the largest subdivision of the section, except fractional lots which cannot be described by aliquot parts. States were divided into townships containing 6 square miles and subdivided into 36 sections, each containing 640 acres. Sections were further subdivided into half sections, quarter-sections, and sixteenth-sections or into lots, until the piece of land was accurately described.

Sections subdivided into halves are represented as N, S, E, and W (such as "the north half of section 5") or quarters of a section are represented as NW, SW, NE, and SE (such as "the northwest quarter of section 5").

Sometimes, several Aliquot Parts are required to accurately describe a piece of land. For example,"E½ SW¼ " denotes the east half of the southwest quarter (containing 80 acres), and SW¼NE¼NE¼" denotes the southwest quarter of the northeast quarter of the northeast quarter (containing 10 acres).

In general: a section contains 640 acres, a half section contains 320 acres, a quarter section contains 160 acres, a half of a quarter section contains 80 acres, and a quarter of a quarter contains 40 acres, etc.

Irregular tracts of land not generally described by conventional aliquot parts are a lot, a tract, or a small holding claim. It is important to remember that the aliquot parts shown in the patent data usually translate into words found on the land document.

In general: a section contains 640 acres, a half section contains 320 acres, a quarter section contains 160 acres, a half of a quarter section contains 80 acres, and a quarter of a quarter contains 40 acres, etc.

Document Number

The primary identification number given to the original GLO document. Warrant numbers, certificate numbers, BIA numbers, railroad patents, swamp patents and coal certificate numbers may be used as the document number. In cases where a certificate number is not given you may find the original GLO Serial number.

Issue Date

The month, day, and year that the President signed the land document. On this document you will also find signatures of officers or employees of the GLO. Beginning June 17, 1948, the authority was delegated to the Secretary of the Interior to issue patents on public lands.

Patentee Name

If you find your ancestor listed and want more specific information regarding property location,
and a copy of the original patent,
Go to:  Bureau of Land Management - General Land Office Records
(Original patents are online and may be downloaded or certified copies ordered.
More specific property location and description is also available there.)

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