“Considering the entire spectrum of American genealogy, land and property records have probably helped solve more difficult problems than any other single source.”
~NORMAN E. WRIGHT, Building an American Pedigree
Acknowledging that land records are among the most valuable records produced for genealogical research is simply not enough—you have to use them. Many researchers simply ignore them. Why? Although it is hard for me to imagine, Pat Hatcher states in her book Locating Your Roots: Discover Your Ancestors Using Land Records (Cincinnati: Betterway Books, 2003) that genealogists avoid land records because (1) they may be confusing, (2) they can be difficult to locate, and (3) they contain both valuable information and routine data, and one never knows which will be uncovered. If you have not already read a good deal about land records and worked with deeds, I recommend that you read Hatcher’s book for definitions of terms commonly used in land records.
Land records are an underutilized resource. To gain the most from them, you must examine them in their primary form, which is not easily available. Researching deeds may require extensive searching in databases or checking ten to fifteen reels of microfilm (or even more) to find all the land transactions made by your ancestors. Many researchers may not understand the jargon used in deeds and may decide that searching land records is more complex than it truly is. Yes, working in them can be tedious, time-consuming, and downright boring. After reading all the legal verbiage four hundred times, you may wonder why they couldn’t have found an easier way to transfer land from one person to another. Soon, however, you will learn how to ignore the nonessential parts and find the nuggets of valuable information. There are hidden treasures in those deed books, and you will be well rewarded if you don’t give up the hunt.
Land records are among the most valuable of all sources genealogists use. Land provides a tangible connection between the past and present. Documents arising from land transfers record transactions involving our ancestors and one of their most precious possessions. Those records provide us with a multitude of clues and evidence for the genealogical connections we seek.
Ninety percent of all white males in this country owned land at some point in their lives. This is just one of the factors that make land records so important to genealogists. Land endures. After wars, courthouse fires, family migrations, boundary changes, and economic declines, the land endures. Because ownership of land has been so important, people are careful about maintaining good land records. They try to make sure their names are spelled correctly, and they distinguish themselves from others of the same name in the community by using a middle initial or an individual designation, such as “Abraham Myer, the blacksmith,” or the terms Sr. and Jr. Landowners strive to make sure the titles are clear so that they can sell or pass the land to others without entanglements. If there is a courthouse fire, the land records are the first to be saved. And if they are lost, they are the first to be replaced.
All of these factors aid the genealogist. This does not mean you will find every title cleared, or that you won’t find mistakes in deeds, including creatively spelled names. It means that these records are the most likely to be correct of all those we use in our research.
In addition, by knowing exactly where a piece of land is located and tracking its transfer, the genealogist is less likely to fall into the common trap of following someone of the same name rather than the correct ancestor.
I come from a long line of farmers, and one thing can be said for farmers: Nothing, with the possible exception of family, is more important to them than their land. In fact, most of my immigrant ancestors, whether they came in 1870 or 1630, came to this country for an opportunity they did not have in Europe: They came to own land. Many of my ancestors did not leave wills or probate records. Many of them were not regular church members, and if family Bibles existed, they have long since gone by the wayside. But my forebears left land records, and it is through those records that I have solved some of my most difficult genealogical problems.
Following are some of the items that you can find within land records—often direct evidence for your research problems. Later in the chapter, I will share some case studies that show how you can gain genealogical information from indirect evidence in deeds.
The initial rule of thumb is to locate the first land purchase your ancestor made in a given location. Obviously, the first place to look for that deed is the grantee deed index. The first entry may have been made before he moved, or before he established his residence in the new county. In a Georgia deed dated 4 September 1836, George B. Wardlaugh of Bibb County, Georgia, sold to James Brown of Newberry District, South Carolina, 2021⁄2 acres in the first district of Coweta County, Georgia (Coweta County, Georgia, Deed Book E:150). And, on 15 May 1830, Robert and Mary Rabe, formerly of Scott County, Kentucky, now of Marion County, Missouri, for $200 sold to Levi Barkley of Marion County 80 acres in Marion County. (Marion County, Missouri, Deed Book A:29).
If you cannot locate that first land purchase in the grantee books, your ancestor may have obtained his land by military warrant. The National Archives has microfilmed the bounty land warrant index for the American Revolution and some of the warrants issued for the War of 1812. The bounty land warrants that are not indexed are at the National Archives. For the American Revolution, the bounty land records have also been filmed. There are many other reasons individuals could have received bounty land (see Patricia Law Hatcher’s Locating Your Roots, pages 76-77).
Perhaps your ancestor obtained his land from the federal land office in a sale of public land. Sometimes duplicates of those land records are in the county offices. But more likely, they will be found only at the federal level, especially for the eastern states. These patents have remained in local offices in the western states. To learn how to obtain the land records for an individual who acquired federal land, see the “Public Lands” chapter in Hatcher’s Locating Your Roots. Another excellent source for this information is Ken Hawkins’s online guide to using Record Group 49, Land Entry Files of the General Land Office <www.archives.gov/files/publications/ref-info-papers/rip114.pdf>.
It is important to note the people who bought land at the same time as your ancestor. Even when entering federal land, people could choose where they wanted to live, and they may have lived in a certain location for a number of years before they actually completed the land entry process.
Watch for individuals who purchased land in the same area as your ancestor. Their names may be easier to trace than the one you are searching, or perhaps that family left better records in the community. Cheap land in a new area attracted family groups, and not just those who were closely related. Within a frontier community, it is almost always possible to link early settlers together—if you have the patience and the desire to do it. Finding a cluster of names in one community may lead to that same cluster of names in an earlier place of residence.
For example, Joseph Miller and Benjamin U. Goodrich bought land the same day in adjoining sections. If you were looking for their origins, which surname would you try to trace—Miller or Goodrich? In this case, Miller was the easier to track because he became an important member of the community, living to a ripe old age and leaving many descendants. Benjamin Goodrich was only about thirty years old when he bought land. But he died the same year, leaving just one child. Because of their land purchases, I surmised that Benjamin was some relation to Joseph. Sure enough, when I found Joseph Miller in Maury County, Tennessee, I also found a record of Benjamin’s marriage to Joseph’s daughter.
Do not despair if the first land purchase does not pinpoint where your ancestor came from. Check all of the deeds he created. Sometimes a later deed will give you that information. In 1845, Richard Brown recorded a deed of gift in Polk County, Missouri, that he had written in 1828, when he lived in White County, Tennessee. In another example, Samuel Moore of Polk County, Missouri, fell on hard times in 1838. He took out a mortgage on the money he expected to receive from the estate of William Lamm in Harrison County, Kentucky. Those deeds would have been much easier to locate if an index for the early land records of Polk County, Missouri, existed. Instead, I read the deeds page by page. This is much easier when your ancestor is settling in a newly formed county. But you should consider reading all deeds page by page even if they’re from a long-established county, because no index is perfect, no matter when it was compiled.
Always read the last grantor entry for a man in a given location. That deed may tell you where he went. People were reluctant to burn all of their bridges behind them and may not have wanted to sell that last remaining piece of property until they were sure that they wanted to stay in the new area. Genealogists often become frustrated when they encounter the problem of an individual who lived in a community for a long time and then suddenly—just when the researcher expects to find a will—disappeared. It was not uncommon for a man, particularly a widower, to spend his last few years with a child, often a daughter. That last deed may tell you where he went to spend those remaining years as he concluded the business of a lifetime.
Sometimes the individual returned to sell his last piece of property, but more often he issued a power of attorney to a friend or relative still residing in that community to sell his land for him.
On 7 November 1833, Benjamin Coats of Polk County, Missouri, gave power of attorney ... to sell land in Bedford County that formerly belonged to Baily W. Coats, deceased, and now owned by his heirs (Bedford County, Tennessee, Deed Book H:284).
Although not as common as a deed made after someone has moved to an area, sometimes a deed stating where the grantor planned to go was made before he left the county.
John Hendricks, Nathan Witt and Nancy, his wife, of Estill County, Kentucky, being about ready to remove to the state of Missouri appointed Robert Clark to transact all business needed to settle the estate of James Hendricks, deceased (Estill County, Kentucky, Deed Book E:196.)
Note: This deed not only tells you the destination of Nathan and Nancy Witt, but also her probable maiden name as well.
When you find a group of individuals who sold land together, and that land belonged to an individual who had died, you can assume that these people are probably his heirs, even if it is not stated.
If a man died still owning property, there must be some disposition made by the heirs. One of the ways land was sold was an administrator’s sale. The administrator of the estate petitioned the court to sell the land to raise money to pay the debts of the estate. Unfortunately, these petitions did not provide the names of the heirs. In another unhelpful situation, the administrator sold the land and the court ordered him to divide the money obtained among the living heirs, but did not name them. If land was left in the estate after all the debts were paid, it must be divided among the heirs. If there was a great deal of property, there may have been enough to allocate a share or “lot” to each of the heirs. Commissioners (usually three) were appointed by the court to evaluate the land and determine the best way to divide it so that each piece would be of equal value. That recommendation was returned to the court, which determined who received which lot. The deed book may include a helpful map showing how that land was divided (image A).
This map of Jeremiah Turpin’s estate division was found in a deed book.
After Thomas Toler Jr. died in Wayne County, North Carolina, the land was divided in August 1821:
In obedience to an order from the county court, the subscribers divided the land of Thomas Toler Jr. between the heirs of said deceased as the above plan shows. This division was completed October 27, 1821 (Wayne County, North Carolina, Deed Book 12:20).
Lot no. 1 was to Jesse Toler for four acres on the edge of Sawpit swamp.
Lot no. 2 was to John Toler for four acres adjoining Jesse Toler’s.
Lot no. 3 was to Richard Toler for four acres adjoining John Toler’s land.
Lot no. 4 was to Dixon Toler for four acres adjoining Richard’s tract.
If one or several of the heirs petitioned the court to partition the land, but the court determined that the land could not be divided without causing a loss of value to everyone concerned, the land was put up for auction. Sometimes one of the heirs would be the highest bidder, and then he would pay the others in cash, keeping the real property for himself. On other occasions, an outside party bought the land and the cash was divided among the heirs, depending on what portion of the estate they were entitled.
Another possibility is that the heirs may have decided to sell the land to one of the siblings for a small amount of money. Perhaps the others had received money from their parents over the years, while the younger one stayed at home and cared for the aging parents. Or some of the heirs may have moved away and were no longer interested in the land that remained. In that case, each heir had to sell his or her share to the sibling who wanted to gain all shares in order to have clear title. You may find all of the heirs listed in one deed of sale to their sibling, two or three selling together, or each selling individually. The deeds may be scattered throughout the deed books over several years of records. Some deeds may actually tell you the number of undivided shares in the land, which indicates the number of heirs and the portion each inherited.
Following are some examples of these types of deeds, what we can learn from them, and the steps we must take to gain more information.
In this deed abstracted from Boone County, Missouri, the heirs are carefully outlined:
On August 25, 1829, heirs of John Robinett Jr., who died intestate, as a co-partner of Pleasant Robinett, left a parcel of land in Boone County that was sold by his heirs to Pleasant Robinett. John Robinett Jr.’s heirs were father, John Robinett, and brothers and sisters Joseph Robinett, David Robinett, Moses Robinett, Pleasant Robinett, William C. Robinett and Sarah Robinett, Mary Robinett, who had intermarried with John A. Cotton, Rebecca Vivion, who had intermarried with John G. Vivion, and Rachel Pemberton, who had intermarried with Lewis H. Pemberton. (Boone County, Missouri, Deed Book C:217).
Another set of deeds illustrates another type of recorded distribution.
On August 24, 1841, John Keller and wife, Nancy, sold to George Zumwalt all their right, title and interest in real property which descended to Nancy as one of the heirs of George Zumwalt, deceased (Franklin County, Missouri Deed Book D:449).
From this deed, we can assume that a younger George Zumwalt bought the shares of the deceased George Zumwalt. Was Nancy a daughter of the elder George, and therefore a Zumwalt? We can’t make that assumption yet, but it’s likely. Our next step is to see if we can find other heirs of George Zumwalt, Sr. selling land to the living George Zumwalt. Check the grantee index:
On August 24, 1841, David Crow and wife, Elizabeth, sold George C. Zumwalt their one-seventh part of the estate of George Zumwalt Senr., deceased, that descended to Elizabeth as one of the heirs (Franklin County, Missouri, Deed Book D:448).
We now have identified another heir, Elizabeth, perhaps George Sr.’s daughter or sister, and we know that there are seven parts to the estate of George Zumwalt Sr. If we looked only for people named Zumwalt who were selling land to George Zumwalt, we would not find the married women who were also heirs. Continue to check the grantee index to find additional heirs:
On August 16, 1841, William Coshow and his wife, Elizabeth, sold to George C. Zumwalt their right, title and interest, it being one undivided seventh part, which descended to John Zumwalt as heir and was sold to William Coshow (Franklin County, Missouri, D:448).
Watch out for the red herrings! Some deeds are not as explicit as this one. They may report the sale of a one-seventh share without explaining that the land was acquired by purchase, not by inheritance. The heir here is John Zumwalt, not Elizabeth Coshow. Continued research in the grantee deed books eventually showed all seven children of George Zumwalt, Sr.
Remember that indexes do not always lead to the list of heirs you are looking for. Some of the land partitions to which I have referred are indexed under the name of the executor or administrator of the estate. You can find this individual’s name in the books containing letters of administrations or testamentary, the probate minute books, or the bond books. Some counties may have all these records; some may have retained only one of them. It’s also possible to find some of these records indexed under Sheriff’s Deeds or under the name of the sheriff himself. That makes it more difficult for you, but it’s still worth it if the deed contains the names of all the heirs. So keep looking.
Prenuptial agreements are often recorded in deed books. This type of agreement is usually found when a man and woman have been married previously and are both bringing property to the marriage.
On November 13, 1775, Vincent Mayer and Elizabeth Neukommer of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania became engaged and formed a prenuptial agreement. She was bringing £116, 9s. 7p to the marriage, and Vincent Mayer promised that if Elizabeth died before him he would pay back the sum to her children (Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Deed Book GAG:143).
Such an arrangement may have been made in a first marriage if the woman was bringing property that she had inherited and wanted to keep as her own. This was more common with personal property (which, at one time, included slaves) than with real estate.
On December 19, 1835, whereas a marriage is intended between John W. and Priscilla and whereas Priscilla is possessed of personal estate she inherited from her father, William Price, deceased, to wit; two negro slaves named Malinda and Dan, and a share of money ... such property will be held in trust and she may at any time during her lifetime devise such property (Barry County, Missouri, Deed Book A:20).
Standard dower was a one-third interest in the husband’s real estate for the wife’s lifetime only. Upon the death of the widow, her dower lands were divided among her husband’s heirs. Note that it was only his heirs; any children she might have had in a previous or subsequent marriage were not included in the division of the dower. Please be sure that you do not write a woman off as dead before her time. Clerks were not always as careful as they should have been in obtaining a wife’s dower. Rarely did a wife have to sign a dower release on a mortgage, even though that land was subsequently lost because the mortgage was not paid. Or perhaps the wife was not able to be present at the time the deed was made. Sometimes the wife would not release her dower until much later. In some instances, the male grantor would post a bond to ensure his wife’s release of dower. In the following example, the fact that the release was not made until later was extremely helpful because it revealed where the family was living.
On August 3, 1838, Arthur L. Johnson and wife, Margaret, now in Baltimore, Maryland, as attorney for his brother, Charles D.W. Johnson and Eliza, the wife of said Charles now in Missouri, sold 320 acres to Osage Mining and Smelting County, a number of parcels in Cole and Morgan County, Eliza appeared and released dower in Boonville, Cooper County, Missouri (Morgan County, Missouri, Book 2:398).
On 29 July 1728, William Upham, who married Thankful “which is said daughter and co-heir of Joseph Dana, late of Concord,” quitclaimed his right to eight acres in Concord (Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Land Records 28:243). All printed genealogical works have Thankful incorrectly listed as the daughter of Daniel Dana. This deed proves she was the daughter of Joseph.
By the time a man moved into his fifties, his children would have been starting their own families. Many fathers bought their sons or sons-in-law parcels of land, or divided some of the acreage they already possessed. We all know to look for deeds of gift from a man to his son or son-in-law that say “for love and affection.” But you also should know the usual price of land during the period you are searching. Some young men did not want an outright gift, so if the land was sold for much less than the going rate, you may have a clue to a relationship.
Bird and Nancy Estes sold 180 acres to Garret McDowell for just $50, when the going rate was $125 per acre. Further research showed why. On 19 February 1830 in St. Clair County, Illinois, Garret McDowell married Nancy Estes.
By the time a man entered his sixties, he would likely begin making some final plans, and may have made deeds of gift to his younger sons, perhaps with a provision that they would allow him to remain in the home and take care of him in his later years. He may also have chosen to distribute his land to his children, one deed at a time. In that case, he wouldn’t have to make a will and could avoid probate.
To find all of these treasures, you must be able to account for every piece of property purchased by your ancestor. I make a table such as the one in image B above to help me keep track.
I created a table to keep track of property owned by James and Elizabeth Brown.
Let’s say that you know your ancestor died in 1852 and that he owned a farm at his death, but you can’t find any deed executed by the heirs. Your problem may be that the deed was not recorded until much later. Perhaps after their father died, the children let their mother or stepmother live on that land for the rest of her life. Then they sold it after she died, which may have been twenty years later. Or maybe they gave it to one of their younger brothers who had been taking care of their mother, and after he died, his youngest son needed a place to farm. In that case, the actual heirs might not sell the land for another thirty-five years.
Or, in another scenario, the children gave the land to their saintly sister, Susan, who had taken such good care of their mother in her later years. After her parents’ deaths, Susan married Timothy Timberbottom. So now, the land either passed to the Timberbottom children or was sold to benefit all the heirs, but was indexed under the name Timberbottom. For every piece of land purchased, there must be some disposition of that land or the title is not clear. You simply have to keep looking.
If the title is not cleared at the time the individual who owned the property died, there may be a suit in circuit court later. Charles Rountree of Polk County, Missouri, died in 1851 and left no issue. The land title was not cleared, and a suit was instigated in 1874. Seventy-five people were named in the suit as having title to the parcel of land. Their relationship to the deceased was not listed. I did, however, finally identify those heirs and published the results in the Fall 2002 issue of Ozar’kin.
If you know the land description, your search to chain the title may be easier if you use the tract books. These books list land sales by land description, section, township, and range, rather than by grantor or grantee. They then guide you to the deed book that describes the sale. In some states, these tract books are in private land abstract offices. In others, such as Ohio, Illinois, and Kansas, they are located in the deed office. Even though tract books may be in private rather than public hands, I have never been charged to look at older records, but no doubt some holders may charge a fee.
I was researching the family of Caroline Elliott, who supposedly had lived in Greene County, Missouri, in the mid-nineteenth century. I wasn’t having a great deal of success in the standard sources. I did find that a man named Thomas F. Elliott, supposedly Caroline’s husband, had purchased a small parcel of land. On 26 July 1844, Jacob H. Smith and his wife, Mary Catharine Smith, of Greene County, sold to Thomas F. Elliott of the same location, for $290, the fractional NW1⁄4 of section 5, Township 29N, Range 20W containing 80 acres more or less (Greene County, Missouri, Deed Book C:303). Thomas F. Elliott did not appear on any of the extant tax rolls, including the one for 1843. He did not appear in the census of 1840 or 1850. There was no record that he had sold the land. What had happened to it? It was obviously still sitting there and someone owned it. How had it been transferred?
From the map pictured in image C, I discovered that by 1876, the parcel in question was owned by Abner McGinty. I tried tracking the deed back by finding who McGinty purchased the land from, and where that man had purchased the land, and so on. But I hit a dead end at a man named Edmund Turner. I could not determine how Edmund had obtained the land. So, I went to the tract books at the Hogan Land Title Company. At the place in the transactions where the deed book and page should have been listed, there was a notation: “cc 1875-165.” The man at the abstract office had no idea what the notation meant, and said that he had asked at the courthouse, and they had no suggestions, either. I decided I would try the circuit court records for the year 1875 and look on page 165.
This detailed map of Greene County, Missouri, taken from the Illustrated Historical Atlas of Greene County, Missouri, helped me determine who owned a particular plot of land.
“On 22 May 1875, the circuit court of Greene County rendered a decision in the case of Abner C. McGinty vs. the unknown heirs of Thomas F. Elliott, deceased.” The suit was over the parcel of land I was researching, “which Thomas F. Elliott allegedly sold on 26 July 1844 to Edmund Turner, but failed to make him a deed.” The suit then told me that Edmund Turner had sold the land to Bedford Henslee, who in turn sold it to William A. Norfleet, who deeded it to the plaintiff. The court agreed to clear the title and removed any right, title, and interest the unknown heirs of Thomas F. Elliott might have. I was back to square one as far as Thomas’s heirs and his wife, Caroline, were concerned, but I had disposed of the elusive piece of property and knew Thomas was dead by 1875. In addition, I had made an important friend at the land title company. My next step would have been to check the actual case file for the suit. But unfortunately, it was destroyed when the courthouse basement flooded.
Remember that you need to track down every piece of property owned by your ancestors and determine each one’s disposition. As you can see from the example of Caroline Elliott’s family, there is the problem of the unrecorded deed. Unfortunately, there was no law stating that a deed must be recorded for it to be valid—and, in fact, a fee was required to record a deed. Eventually, people found that they should record deeds for their own protection. But in the early history of the country, it was common to simply hand over your land without making any record of the transaction.
As long as someone had the original deed and it was made over to the grantee, he could sell the property. This is the reason we find holes when attempting to chain a title of land back to its original owner.
I have given you a method for chaining titles in federal land states using the tract (or abstract) books. In a state land state, which was surveyed on metes and bounds, you must try other methods, such as platting the land. For an excellent lesson on platting land, see chapter eleven of Hatcher’s Locating Your Roots: Discover Your Ancestors Using Land Records.
Over and over, you will find that land records untie the knotty problems that other records cannot untangle. Never overlook their value when reconstructing your own family’s history. These two case studies will show you how deeds were able to solve longstanding family mysteries.
James Brown lived in Newberry District, South Carolina, when his father’s estate was settled in 1830. But his later residence was unknown. The Newberry County local history said, “James Brown married Melvina Haynes and moved to Georgia.” James had a brother, Robert, for whom I was also searching. His wife, Ann, was mentioned in her father’s 1852 will, which said she also resided in Georgia.
I read every entry in the 1850 Georgia census, looking for a James Brown with wife, Melvina, who was born in South Carolina. There were at least fifty entries for men named James Brown, but I found nothing. I checked all the 1850 census entries for a man named Robert Brown, born in South Carolina, married to Ann. Still nothing. I had been so sure the two brothers would be living close to one another. Now what?
I found the answer in a deed executed back in South Carolina more than fifteen years after James and Robert had left. “On 17 February 1852, Nancy Brown, Abram Moore and Elizabeth, his wife, of the state of South Carolina, with James Brown and Robert Brown of Coweta County Georgia, in consideration of $1500 to be paid by George Brown of Newberry District, did convey 170 acres on Timothy Creek” (Newberry County, South Carolina, Deed Book EE:106–107).
But where was James in the 1850 census? Right in Coweta County, age forty-four, born in South Carolina—but my other clue, wife Melvina, had not helped at all. The James listed in Coweta County was married to Lavinia, so I hadn’t picked up on him. When I visited the cemetery in Coweta County, I found James buried next to his wife: Lavinia Melvina Brown.
Where was Robert on the 1850 census? He must have been on vacation; he was missed by the census taker even though he appeared as a slave owner on the slave schedule. Thus, he was living near his brother, just as I had originally suspected. I found him buried in the same cemetery with wife, Margaret Ann. One deed had solved the problem.
Too often, New England researchers build imaginary stone walls around towns and assume that everyone with the same name who appeared in the vital records of a specific town was somehow related.
This was the case with David Robinson. David Robinson married Mercy Segur in 1726 in Newton, Massachusetts. It had been assumed that there was only one Robinson family living in Newton, so David was assigned to that family in several publications. When researching that family, I discovered that David was not named in the probate of either his alleged father, William, or an alleged brother, Jeremiah, who died without children. If David were a son of William Robinson, he would have been the only child whose birth was not recorded in the town records. Neither was the name David found among any of the family’s descendants. To which Robinson family did David truly belong?
It was easy to learn that a man named David Robinson had been born to George and Sarah Robinson in Watertown, Massachusetts, but there was no further printed information on that line. And there was nothing to connect George Robinson to the town of Newton. While it is true that Watertown and Newton were not far apart—just across the Charles River from one another—why would David marry a girl from Newton if his family was in Watertown? No children of Mercy and David were mentioned in the town records of either Newton or Watertown, and there were no other stray families named Robinson in Newton.
On 1 June 1728, David Robinson produced his only deed in Middlesex County: David Robinson of Needham sold to John Taylor of Newton, a tract of land lying in Weston, consisting of forty-one acres bounded by land of Joseph Whitney, westerly by John Kimball and southerly by his own land. Sarah Robinson, “the mother of the said David Robinson,” and “Mercy Robinson, the wife of said David yielded up all their right of dower” were mentioned (Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Land Records 27:422).
We find a David Robinson who lived in Needham (Suffolk County) and sold land in Weston (Middlesex County), which bordered his own land, but we have no idea how he acquired either parcel. This is the only land record for David Robinson in Middlesex County. Since this man had a wife named Mercy, it seemed possible he was the man who married in Newton. Since he had a mother named Sarah, it is possible that he was the son of George of Watertown. A George Robinson died in Weston, Middlesex County, in 1726, but he left no probate records.
Eventually, the case was established through land records, but it was not easy. To help you see how the connections were made, we will move backward (instead of in circles, as I did for a considerable length of time). This is an approximation of George Robinson’s land transaction as it was finally constructed. There was only one deed recorded for George Robinson Sr. in Middlesex County:
On 10 January 1721/22 George Robinson of Weston, yeoman, and his wife, Sarah, sold a mansion house and fifteen acres to Samuel Jennison of Watertown. That acreage was bounded on the southwest by the Weston line (bordering the town of Sudbury), on the southeast by land of George Robinson, on the northeast by land of John Kimball (which formerly had been owned by Caleb Green), and on the northwest by land of Samuel Jennison.
Returning to the crucial deed executed by David Robinson in 1728, we are reminded that the land he conveyed was abutted on the west by John Kimball and on the south by land he retained. A description of that parcel would place the land of John Kimball to the northwest, the exact same relationship to the land held by George Robinson Sr. seven years previously. Therefore, David Robinson and his wife, Mercy, were in possession of the land held by George Robinson before his death and probably where the widow, Sarah, still resided.
The locations of these men in the various towns—Watertown, Newton, Weston, and Needham—gave the impression that George and David Robinson were constantly moving. In fact, it was the boundaries that were changing. The map in image D, drawn in 1831, is available from the Massachusetts State Archives. It shows both contemporary town boundaries in 1831 and the original town lines.
Studying historical maps of Massachusetts (like this one, from the state archives) helped me realize that town borders—not George and David Robinson—moved over time.