Find your ancestors land records for free with BLM General Land Office Records

March 29, 2010 | By Kimberly In Land Records, Maps |

Another often overlooked resource researchers neglect when searching for their ancestors is land records. There is a lot of information recorded during a land transaction and it could be just the document that ties your research together. The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) General Land Records Office (GLO) provides a wonderful service as you search for your ancestors’ land records.

The BLM-GLO offers two different searches: land patents and survey plats. A land patent is a document that shows the transfer of land ownership from the Federal government (public lands) to an individual. Public lands are those still owned by the Federal government. Back in the 1700 and 1800’s, the government owned A LOT of land, especially west of the original thirteen colonies. So it is only logical that as they sold these lands, there would be documentation. The states where you can search for land patents include: 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.

In order to do the basic search, you just enter the state and last name. The standard tab allows you to do a more advanced search. This image shows my search for my ancestor Nathaniel Dryden in Missouri.

BLM-GLO search page

The resulting search page shows 8 records. You can quickly view the image of the document by clicking on the icon to the left of the patentee name. Images can be downloaded as GIF, TIFF, or PDF making it so easy to add to your personal genealogy file or scrapbook. If you go back to the results list and click on the name, you will then see all the specific information about that document. You can also see the legal land description and order a certified copy, if you so desire.

BLM-GLO Land Patent image for Nathaniel Dryden

The other search area is the survey search. This will allow you to see the original survey drawings and field notes as the government prepared to sell it’s lands to individuals. You have to know the state and county you are interested in. There are no individual names in this database but it can add some wonderful context to your research notes showing the how the land was originally divided up.

If you had ancestors that settled west of the thirteen colonies, it might be worth a look in the BLM-GLO land records database. Just another great resource as you search for your ancestors for free!