New York Land and Property: Difference between revisions

There are few pre-1660 [[New York]] land records. Some records of earliest land grants during the Dutch period are in the following publications:

All colonial patents and land grant applications and many deeds are in the State Archives. Patents and deeds from 1664 on are also on microfilm at the Family History Library. Some of the major collections of early land records are described in the following sections.

New York. Secretary of State. ''Patents of the State of New York 1664–1912'' (Salt Lake City, Utah: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1973; on 60 FHL films). May give name, location (residence), and volume number. Indexes include:

* Colonial Patents Grantee Card Index, 1638–1780

* Grantee Card Index for v. 18–53, ca. 1775–1912

Bowman, Fred Q. ''Landholders of Northeastern New York, 1739–1802'' (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1983; FHL book 974.7 R24b; film 1321009 item 8). Indexes patents, 1739–1775, and deeds and mortgages, 1764–1802, for the present-day counties of Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Warren, and Washington.

Surveys sometimes contain descriptions, proprietor's records, names of buyers, names of neighbors, and maps. These surveys and accompanying maps sometimes show settlers or occupants of property; most of the surveys were made prior to subdivision of patents or other tracts.

New York. Department of Transportation. ''Land Survey Field Notes, 1665–1927''. These are at the state archives and consist of notes and maps of land surveyed as well as books of sale, cashbooks, and registers (not available at the Family History Library).

Some pre-1810 land sales between individuals were recorded by the secretary of state instead of a county clerk. Many are deeds in which one of the parties resided in another county, state, or country. Many are transfers between wealthy people. The deeds are not recorded chronologically. Deeds deposited with the secretary of state are now at the state archives.

Deeds usually show buyer, seller, residence, and dates. Sometimes they show previous residence and give relationships.

New York. Secretary of State. ''Abstracts and Indexes of Deeds''. Seven Volumes. (FHL films 947105–106 and 947114–15.) These are handwritten ledgers indexing and abstracting the 43 volumes of deeds, years 1659–1846, giving volume and page references.

Mortgages establish when a family resided at a specific place. Mortgage information is found in:

* New York. Secretary of State. ''Mortgages Grantor Card Index, 1784–1973''. (FHL film 945399).

* New York. Secretary of State. ''Loan Mortgages'', Volume 3, 1807–24. (FHL film 94712).

* New York. State Comptroller. ''Bonds and Mortgages for the Sale of State Lands, 1797–1878''. 38 Volumes. (Not at FHL.) These are account books recording mortgage payments on land purchased from the state.

A manor was a tract of land granted by the governor. In some cases, manors had their own courts and exercised civil and criminal jurisdiction over the tenants who leased land. Manorial records are used to establish a place of residence.

A source for more historical information about the manors is Kim, Sung Bok, ''Landlord and Tenant in Colonial New York: Manorial Society, 1664–1775'' (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1978; FHL book 974.7 R2k). The appendix, "A Note on Sources," describes the manorial records that exist and where they are located.

New York granted military bounty land patents for service in the French and Indian War, and in the Revolutionary War, but did not grant lands to veterans of the War of 1812. Most French and Indian War grants were in the region of the upper Hudson River. In 1782, Revolutionary War veterans were issued land by lottery in the Finger Lakes region of central New York (28 townships in the present counties of Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, Cortland, Oswego, Wayne, Schuyler, and Tompkins). Many men sold their grants and never settled the land. Before this, lands were made available in the Old Military Tract—located in present-day Clinton, Essex, and Franklin counties—but few soldiers settled there.

The state archives has ''Revolutionary War Accounts and Claims''. These records were abstracted in James A. Roberts, ''New York in the Revolution as Colony and State'', Revised Edition. (Albany, New York: 1904). See Revolutionary War at [[New York Military Records]]. About two-thirds of the original documents plus the entire name index were destroyed in the Capitol fire of 1911. The surviving records have been microfilmed and the films are available for purchase or interlibrary loan from the New York State Archives at http://www.archives.nysed.gov/aindex.shtml.

Between 1786 and 1791, the New York Land Commission sold 5.5 million acres of western New York to speculators. Many settlers first obtained land from companies such as the Holland Land Company. The Hartford Treaty of 1786 gave Massachusetts the title to land in western New York but reserved political governance to New York.

The Macomb Purchase was made in 1792. This four-million-acre tract included all of modern Lewis County; most of modern St. Lawrence, Franklin, and Jefferson counties; and parts of Oswego and Herkimer counties.

'''Deeds and Mortgages'''. After land was transferred from the proprietors to individual owners, county clerks were to record subsequent transactions. Sadly, in many cases the deeds were never recorded. Some colonial deeds were, however, recorded in town records.

The Family History Library has hundreds of reels of New York county land records. Grantee (buyer) and grantor (seller) and mortgagee and mortgagor indexes are available on microfilm for most counties, as are the deeds, to about 1900. The indexes for Albany and New York counties have been published.