Land Records in the National Archives

To search for land records at the National Archives, here is some of what they have.

There are partial indexes at the National Archives, as well as in the Bureau of Land Management, as follows:

Warrants under the Act of 1788 (incomplete)

Virginia Military Warrants

Private Land Claims

Coal and Mineral Entries

Name indexes of land entries arranged by District Land Offices in the states of Alabama, Arizona, Florida,

Louisiana, Nevada, Utah and Alaska.

Among the records of the Veteran's Administration in the National Archives, there is an alphabetical index to applications for military bounty land warrants issued under the Acts of 1847, 1850, 1852, and 1853. (Applications for warrants before 1880 were lost by fire; the National Archives has only cards for such entries).

If you want to locate any other land entry file in the National Archives, you need to have the legal description of the land or the date, or approximate date of entry, and the name of the land office through which the entry was made.

Revolutionary War veterans were granted land according to rank (Acts of 1788, 1789, 1803 and 1806). A Major?General was tranted 1100 acres; a Captain 300; Lieutenant 200; Ensign 150; Private, 100.

After 1855, there were no bounty land grants. Union veterans of the Civil War could take Homestead Land, or

Donation Land in Oregon and Washington. Confederate soldiers were not allowed to file for land.

Jeannette Holland Austin

About The Author
Jeannette Austin
I have traced personal genealogies for over 40 years, mostly on those ancestors from Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. As a result, huge databases emerged. Additionally, in order to share the information, I have written over 75 books pertaining to family genealogies and research. These books may be found in regional libraries and State Archives in the United States. My current websites also house tons of genealogical data. www.georgiapioneers.com, a subscriber website, houses millions of pages of genealogies, notes, county records, bible records, births, deaths, marriages....simply a growing collection from my continuing files. My ultimate purpose is to provide the ultimate website for Georgia research.
jeannette@georgiapioneers.com