Virginia Land Records

The most commonly recorded deed is a deed of bargain and sale , in which one individual sells property, usually land, but occasionally personal property, to another individual. Such deeds show the names of the grantor and grantee, the residence of both parties, a description of what is being sold, the consideration, the location of the tract of land, the tract's boundaries, and any limitations on the property being sold. The deed was signed by the grantor, and possibly his wife or anyone else having a claim to the property, and by at least two witnesses. Appended to the deed may be a memorandum of livery of seisin , stating that the property has changed hands and that peaceful possession has taken place. On presentation to the court, all forms of deeds were proved and recorded. If the deed was not witnessed, the grantor acknowledged the deed in open court.

Deeds of lease and release are often found in the Northern Neck and older counties. The lease, for a nominal sum, is followed by the release noting the actual sale price. The lease may predate the release by a day, a week, or even a year. Together the two documents make up a legal deed and should not be confused with a simple lease to rent land. Deeds of gift are often found transferring property, either real or personal, from one individual to another "for love and affection." The degree of kinship, if any, between the grantor and grantee is sometimes stated. Tripartite deeds are mortgages or deeds of trust where one party is indebted to another and transfers or mortgages property to a third party to secure the debt.

Under Virginia law, women were required to relinquish their dower rights to real property being sold. If the wife of the grantor or whoever held the dower claim did not appear to relinquish her right, the court appointed two or more individuals to go to her and inquire privately if she did indeed understand and approve of the sale. Such relinquishments were not always recorded with the deeds. They often were recorded later in the deed books and are sometimes found in other record books. Without such dower relinquishment, the purchaser did not have clear title to the property.

Except for a few years early in the eighteenth century, slaves in Virginia were considered personal property and consequently were not usually sold by deed. However, they were often transferred in deeds of gift or were property listed in mortgages and deeds of trust.

Surveys, plats, and processioner's returns are sometimes found in deed books. A plat is a graphic depiction of a survey. Processioner's records describe the walking and marking of property boundaries. Pre-Revolutionary War processioner's records are found in the church vestry books.

The original Virginia Charter, granted to the Virginia Company of London in 1606, included provisions for granting land to settlers, called planters, and investors, called adventurers. The revised Charter of 1609 specified that planters were to receive fifty acres and adventurers a hundred acres per share, but that all lands were to be held in common for another seven years. About 1614, Sir Thomas Dale began rewarding industrious planters with three-acre plots. John Rolfe's successful experiments with tobacco led many planters to plant their “gardens” with tobacco. Grants of land by the London Company began about 1616; the earliest surviving grant is to Simon Codrington in March 1615/6. The Great Charter of 1618 divided Virginia into four boroughs and set aside land within each borough for public use. The governor and Council were given the authority to allot land to individuals within the boroughs. Two copies of each patent were made; one was given to the grantee as proof of title, and the other was retained for company records.

Virginia became a royal colony in 1624. In 1627 Sir George Yeardley determined that, as governor, he had the power to issue patents for settlers who met the old company definition of a planter. In 1654 the Privy Council finally agreed, and millions of acres were granted to individuals claiming headrights during the seventeenth century.

The headright was the “right” to claim fifty acres for every “head” arriving in the colony; most headrights were claimed by the person who paid the passage. Headrights of indentured servants may have been claimed more than once: by the master of the transporting ship, by the merchant who sold the indenture, by the person who bought the indenture, and/or by the servant. Headrights could be bought and sold; many people who paid their own transportation sold their headrights for money to establish themselves in the colony.

The patenting process required several steps, and most of those steps generated a record. The prospective patentee first petitioned the county court for a “certificate of importation.” The certificate, often recorded in county court minute books, was considered proof of the number of headrights claimed. The patentee then carried the certificate of importation to the Secretary of the Colony, who issued a “right” of fifty acres per headright. Once he had a “right,” the patentee took it to the county surveyor, who surveyed the chosen land and created a plat. The patentee returned all of these papers to the Secretary, who made two copies of the patent. One was signed by the governor, sealed, and delivered to the patentee. The other copy was retained in the Secretary's office and was supposed to be recorded.

Once the patent was issued, the patentee had three years to seat and plant the land. “Seating” required payment of the quitrent , an annual payment to the crown of one shilling for every fifty acres. “Planting” required either cultivating one acre or building a house and keeping livestock. Orphans had three years after their majority to seat and plant land. Widows could get extensions of the three years by petitioning the county court.

By the end of the seventeenth century, population growth in the colony of Virginia no longer depended on immigration. Native Virginians wanted new land for tobacco, and the crown wanted to expand the colony, so the treasury right was created. Anyone who wanted new land could receive a “right” to fifty acres for a payment of five shillings. After about 1715, most land was patented by treasury right instead of by headright.

Virginia grants and deeds are readily available to researchers, including original patents and land grants from 1619 to 1921; survey plats from 1779 to 1878; Northern Neck (the area between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers) land grants from 1690 to 1862; Northern Neck surveys from 1722 to 1781 and 1786 to 1874; land warrants from 1779 to 1926; and miscellaneous land records from 1779 to 1923. Original land office records are housed at The Library of Virginia. Many patents have been abstracted and published.

Colonial Wars Bounty Lands:

As early as 1630, the governor's Council offered grants of land to persons who settled on the frontier. In 1646, the Council issued patents to the fort captains and men for the lands on which outlying forts were built along with the lands surrounding the forts. And, in 1701, in an unsuccessful attempt to garrison the frontier, patents equal to four times the headright were offered to groups of men who would undertake the defense of the frontier. None of these offers met with a great deal of success.

Later in the colonial period, bounty lands were offered as an incentive or reward to men who performed military service during the French and Indian War; however, the area in which the land was available was closed by the Proclamation of 1763, so it was not until 1779, and after, that the bounty was actually awarded.

Those persons who performed requisite service had first to obtain a certificate showing proof of that service; some of these certificates were signed in 1774 by Lord Dunmore but most came from county courts in 1779 and 1780. These certificates show the name of the solder; his rank, unit, and length of service; the county in which his service was proved (which was not necessarily his county of residence); the number of the certificate; and any assignment made on the certificate up to the time the warrant was issued.

The land granted on the basis of colonial wars service was in Virginia counties and the resulting grants are searchable through the Virginia Land Office Patents and Grants/Northern Neck Grants and Surveys.

Beware, however, that many colonial soldiers assigned their warrant to speculators or others interested in moving west. All records pertaining to colonial bounty land service are available in manuscript form only.

• Land Records from All States
• Search County Property Records
• Search County Land Patents
• Virginia Land Records, 1639-1850

U.S. House of Representative Private Claims, Vol. 1, Vol. 2 or Vol. 3

The right to own land has always been one of the great incentives for living in the United States. Yet researchers often overlook the importance of land records as a source of family history information. Written evidence of people’s entitlement goes back in time further than virtually any other type of record family historians might use.

Land records meet the needs of researchers in different ways and contain a variety of genealogical and historical data. They are a major source of information for many family histories and provide primary source material for local history as well. They are closely related to probate and other official court records and should be investigated in connection with them. Land and property are leading issues in the settlement of estates, and the majority of civil cases in the courts deal with real and personal property. Although land records rarely yield vital statistics, in many instances they provide the only proof of family relationships. Often they include the names of heirs of an estate (including daughters’ married names and a widow’s subsequent married name) and refer to related probates and other court cases by number and court name. In some places where other records are scarce, the land records take on extra importance. Occasionally these documents disclose former residences and more often provide the new address of the grantors or heirs at the time of the sale of the property.

Land records provide two types of important evidence for the family historian. First, they often document family relationships. Second, they place individuals in a specific time and place, allowing the researcher to sort people and families into neighborhoods and closely related groups. One of land records’ most important qualities is that they are sometimes the only records that allow us to distinguish one person of a common name from another.

The National Archives has bounty-land warrant files, donation land entry files, homestead application files, and private land claim files relating to the entry of individual settlers on land in the public land states. There are no land records for the original thirteen states or for Maine, Vermont, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas, and Hawaii. Records for these states are maintained by state officials, usually in the state capital. Searching for the record of a particular land grant from the federal government requires contacting both the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the National Archives (NARA).