Platting Land

Drawing (platting) the boundaries of a land parcel can offer additional insights to the land record. The term “platting” generally refers to property that is described in metes and bounds. The term “graphing” is more applicable to rectangular survey (township and range).

Benefits

Determine if the same amount of land was sold as was purchased. If not, this is a clue as to other records of acquisition or subdivision.

Distinguish same name individuals in the same county.
Identify common neighbors—which might lead to other records to consider.

Commercial platting software

Deed-Chek by Emerald Data, Inc.

DeedMapper by Direct Line Software

Deed Plotter by Greenbrier Graphics

LANDcalc by COMPUneering, Inc.

Map Draw by Informatik, Inc.

Muncy's Plat Pronto by B.W. Muncy, Inc.

Platplotter - free http://platplotter.appspot.com/

Platting State Lands on Maps

Online software to plat State Land descriptions is at www.genealogytools.net/deeds
Another explanation, “Metes, Bounds & Meanders”, is at http://genealogy.about.com/cs/land/a/metes_bounds.htm
Definitions of many words used for metes and bounds surveying is at http://genealogy.about.com/library/glossary/bldef-metesandbounds.htm

For additional information

E. Wade Hone, Land and Property Research in the United States (Salt Lake City, Utah: Ancestry, Inc., 1997), has a section on platting metes and bounds (pages 89-96) and a section on graphing township, range, and section (pages 173-176).

Sandra Hargreaves Luebking, “Land Records,” in Loretto Dennis Szucs and Sandra Hargreaves Luebking, eds. The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy, 3rd ed. (Provo, Utah: Ancestry, 2006), includes a sidebar, "Creating a Plat," by Mary McCampbell Bell, CG, p. 438.