Chile Land and Property
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Land records (tierras y propiedades) are primarily used to learn where an individual lived and when he or she lived there. They often reveal other family information, such as the name of a spouse, heir, other relatives, or neighbors. You may learn where a person lived previously, his or her occupation, and other clues for further research.
The FamilySearch Library does have land records from Chile. See Fuentes Principales de Registros Genealógicos en Chile uneer "De Tierras y Propiedades" for more information as to why this is a good research source. Because of the availability of better genealogical sources, such as church records and civil registration, land records are seldom used in Chilean research. Land records from 1550 are found in notarial, church, and municipal records at the Archivo National in Santiago, Chile, and the Archivo General de la Nación in Lima, Peru. (See Chile Notarial Records)
Online Resources[edit | edit source]
- 1837-1985 Bienes Raíces (real estate) at Archivo Nacional de Chile - index & images
- These records include purchase and sale documents, effective possessions, leases, mortgages, debts, wills, liens, etc. These documents can provide important information about family history and genealogy since sometimes these transactions were carried out between relatives. It allows us to locate an ancestor in a specific place and date, identify family members such as wives, parents, and children, and give contextual details about the ancestor's life. In Chile, the National Archive has digitized the documents of the real estate conservators of 81 locations in the country, covering 1837-1985 . The website allows users to search and download documents for free and has a catalog of locations covered and digitalized years. To register on the website, one must have a RUN, a Chilean identification number. After entering, a search form will be displayed with the following boxes to fill in: place, year, number, and pages of the registration and then the name of the "seller," "buyer," and "debtor" of the registry. The best criterion for performing a search is "less is more" since filling out all the fields reduces the query results. It is advisable to leave the first boxes blank and perform searches with the name of the ancestor in the categories of "seller," "buyer," and "debtor," each search separately since it is not known in which category there will be results. When searching, writing with lowercase letters and without accents is essential. Furthermore, the search engine does not have a system that detects similar names, so the researcher must use spelling variants of names and surnames; for example, the surname González has variants such as Gonsales, Gonsalez, and Gonzales that must be utilized in the search. In the case of people with two names, such as "María Antonia" or "José Ignacio," it is convenient to do searches with only "Antonia" and "Ignacio" since people do not always use their full name for legal documents. The results are displayed in a table with different criteria, such as the place of registration, the location of the record within the file, and the people involved. An excellent way to filter the results is by reviewing the geographical locations and the years in which they were carried out, to find the person of interest. It is expected to find homonyms, people with the same name. In these cases, the analysis of contextual data such as profession, family members, age, and place of residence makes it possible to clarify the identity of the people mentioned in the documents. The documents are downloadable for free in TIF format; some may have up to four images. The documents must be opened with an image viewer that accepts this format to see all the pages. In addition, all records have the necessary information for their citation as research sources. After locating the document and if a legalized copy is required, it can be requested by paying the amount through the website's shopping cart. The Conservator of the National Archives will sign the issuance of copies and certificates using the advanced electronic signature and send them to the email. The number of digitized online documents will likely increase over time; for now, this collection from the Real Estate Curators of the Chilean National Archive constitutes a good research tool.