The Bureau of Land Management Tract Books are unindexed by name and are organized by geographic location of the property. These tract books only contain entries for successful and unsuccessful attempts to obtain property in the federal domain (usually through cash sales, military bounty land warrants, preemption claims, homestead claims, timber claims, etc.) The tract books do not document transfers between non-Federal entities. Because of the organization of the records, it’s necessary to have a location in mind before the books are searched. While it’s possible to manually search an entire county, knowing the location more precisely is preferable. There are some ways that the location and legal description can be determined:
- Locate the patent for the property on the Bureau of Land Management website. The patent will have the legal description.
- If the location of the property is “known informally” (eg., two miles north of Habben corner) find it on a county atlas that shows townships and sections and use that to determine the legal description.
- If the property was owned at the time the ancestor died a will or probate inventory will probably include the legal description.
The “Guide to the BLM Tract Books” provide more information on going from the legal description to the actual entry in the tract book.
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