What county did they live in ?

-Ellis Island --- over 30% are tourists !!!

Ellis Island www.ellisislandrecords.org 17 million immigrants to the United States between 1892 and 1924 (nearly 3,700 rolls of microfilm) - some 70 percent of U.S. immigrants in those years are on the Ellis Island site People on these records give their exact address

Land descriptions and records

Geographic Names Information System I use the government GNIS site quite frequently searching for counties that towns are located in or trying to pinpoint cemetery locations, etc.

Click here for an example

Quite frequently the government site is down or very very slow, an alternate site that was up when the gov site was down.

http://george.peabody.yale.edu/gnis/ Available from this portion of the Peabody Museum web site are 1,233,933 records corresponding to the labeled features that can be found on the 1:24,000 scale topographic maps of the US Geological Survey. There are 133,813 records representing populated places, and 1,100,120 records representing the other features.

In terms of land distribution, the states fall into two classes: http://www.outfitters.com/genealogy/land/

nhtopos.htm

· Historical Maps of the United States http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/histus.html

· Land Record Reference http://users.rcn.com/deeds/landref.htm

· Maptech MapServer Maps and Charts: View FREE USGS Topo Maps, NOAA Nautical Charts, Aerial Photos. GPS Navigation Software http://mapserver.maptech.com/homepage/

· TerraServer http://terraserver.homeadvisor.msn.com/default.aspx

· Free Topo Foundation http://www.topowest.com/index.html

· http://www.topozone.com/

Computer Programs for Drawing Plat Maps

[1] State-land states where the state made the land grants.

	Thirteen original states, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and W.Virginia.
	Particularly in southern states where a gridded survey was not made, legal descriptions are generally in the indiscriminate metes and bounds system. In this system, the plot is described in terms of the location of trees, streams, rocks and neighboring landowners.
	Example of Indiscriminate Metes and Bounds http://www.outfitters.com/genealogy/land/crain.html

Public-domain states where the federal government made the land grants.

The other 30 states

is described in the Federal Township and Range System which uses a surveyed system of meridians, baselines, townships and ranges. http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/images/page1_large.gif http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/images/page4_large.gif http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/images/page2_large.gif

Search Land Patents Bureau Of Land Management -General Land Office

http://www.glorecords.blm.gov Records Genealogists: Fill in some basic information about whom you are researching (like Patentee Last Name and State). You are probably trying to find who was where, when. In our land patent databases: Patentee = Who Legal Land Description = Where Signature Date = When