Week 39: Map it Out #52Ancestors — Making Sense of it All

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I love maps. Because I have a terrible sense of direction, I really love regular old-fashioned street maps. These days, I rely heavily on Google Maps and the map feature in Apple’s Contacts, but they don’t help with my sense of direction. Sure, they help me get where I want to go, but I really don’t know where I am when I get there. LOL

When I am researching ancestors, I start by getting an atlas for the county where they lived. Back in Week 19, I talked about my husband’s 2nd great-grandparents, George Washington and Mary Elizabeth (Elliott) Baty and their farms in Neosho County, Kansas. The maps showing their properties was really helpful to see them in the context of a certain place at a certain time. One of the cool things about researching in Kansas is the wealth of land information available.

A little history lesson:

When Kansas was opened for non-native settlement in 1854, surveyors divided … [Kansas] into 25 ranges east and 43 ranges west of the 6th principal meridian …. Laterally, Kansas was divided into 6-mile squares called townships, which are numbered from 1 to 35, going south from the Nebraska border. Each township is further divided into 36 sections that are one-mile square [640 acres]. …. This early range and township system is still used for the legal descriptions of rural property.[1]

What that means in simple language is that Kansas was divided into neat little one-mile squares. Deeds specifically refer to those ranges, townships, and sections and you can easily track a piece of property based upon those standard references.

When George and Mary first came to Neosho County in 1875, they acquired two parcels of land from Jacob and Ann Plyborn for $800.[2] The larger of the two lots was eighty acres in Canville Township. The deed described the property as follows:

· The west half (W ½)

· of the north-west quarter (NW ¼) of Section twenty-eight (28)

· in Township twenty-eight (28), Range eighteen (18) south.[3]

I know that’s a lot to take in and it took me a while to get oriented to the descriptions. I’ve attached a plat map to help you see where this property is.

Once you figure out what all this means, it’s super easy to track the property, even when it is later sub-divided. Using the Deed Index Book at the Neosho County Office of the Register of Deeds, I could see who first owned the Northwest Quarter Section 28 and how it was divvied up going forward. I went to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) website where one can access more than five million Federal land records issued between 1788 and the present. From my search at the General Land Office’s site (https://glorecords.blm.gov/default.aspx) I found an 1871 land patent where the U.S. government conveyed to John Hoctor the NW ¼ of Section 28 in Township 28, South of Range 18 East.[4] Going back Deed Index Book, I tracked the property from Hoctor to Perkins to Fitzpatrick to Plyborn to Baty. The Batys sold this land to Nathaniel Lindsay eight years later for $1,400.[5]

For me, this kind of investigation and research is pretty cool. Of course, you might say I need to get out more.

[1] Kansas Historical Society, “Kansas Civil Townships and Independent Cities” (https://www.kshs.org/p/kansas-civil-townships-and-independent-cities/11308 : accessed 12 February 2017).

[2] 800$ in 2019 is $18,659. Inflation Calculator (http://www.in2013dollars.com)..

[3] Neosho County, Kansas, Deed Book J: 614, Jacob Plyborn and wife to G.W. Baty, 17 May 1875; Office of the Register of Deeds, Erie, Kansas.

[4] Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management (http://www.glorecords.blm.gov : accessed 1 October 2019), certificate no. 977, accession no. KS1550_.454, “State Volume Patents," John Hocter, 160 acres described as NW¼ S36 T28S R18E.

[5] Neosho County, Kansas, Deed Book 27: 407, George W. Baty and wife Mary E. Baty to Nathaniel W. Lindsey, 14 August 1883; Office of the Register of Deeds, Erie, Kansas.

If you look carefully at section 28, you will see an 80-acre parcel with the name of “A.S. Rosier.” Using the deed index book, I know this is the Baty property that was sold to Lindsey and then on to others until 1906 when this plat map was produced… — If you look carefully at section 28, you will see an 80-acre parcel with the name of “A.S. Rosier.” Using the deed index book, I know this is the Baty property that was sold to Lindsey and then on to others until 1906 when this plat map was produced showing Rosier as the current owner.