Bucks and Lancaster Counties, Pennsylvania, 1682-1825 Land Records

This data set contains information on approximately 12,690 individuals mentioned in abstracts of deeds for Bucks and Lancaster Counties, Pennsylvania.

The information you can find in these abstracts will provide you with valuable insight into the lives of your Mid-Atlantic ancestors. While the land records are from Pennsylvania, some of the individuals listed were from neighboring Mid-Atlantic states.

For each land transaction, you'll learn the date on which it took place as well as descriptive information about the property involved. You'll also learn about the individuals involved in the transaction (for example, the grantor, grantee, neighbors, and witnesses). For each, you'll learn their residence as well as their relationship to the key person in the record. Also, you'll learn the volume and page number of the original record. The information was extracted from microfilm copies of the original manuscripts.

For the family historian, land records provide two important types of information. First, land records help determine relationships between people. Second, they place an individual in a specific time and place. This information is interesting because it allows you to group people not only into families but, often, neighborhoods as well. Knowing where a person lived at a particular time is important because it helps you direct future family history research and provides clues as to where you may wish to search for additional family history records.

Land record abstracts, such as those included in this data set, often contain detailed information about a particular parcel of land. Instead of simply learning that John Anderson was granted land in Lancaster County in 1760, you may learn, for example, that the land was "120 acres near Little Conestoga Creek." These descriptions can provide important clues to help identify individuals. By locating people with reference to creeks and other natural features, land records help distinguish one John Anderson, son of Mark, from another John Anderson in the same county. (Sandra H. Luebking. "Research in Land and Tax Records" in The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy. Salt Lake City: Ancestry. 1997. Page 241.)

More About this Data Set

From this data, you can learn a great deal of valuable information about your Mid-Atlantic ancestors.

Name — You'll learn the individual's given name and surname, as well as any titles that were included in the original index.

You may have difficulty locating some names for the following reasons:

• Some given names have been abbreviated. For example, "Robert" may appear as "Robt," and "Elizabeth" as "Eliz."
• Some given names are misspelled, contain typos, or may be spelled unusually.
• Some given and middle names are truncated. Specifically this happens when the name, including the spaces between the given name, middle name, and last name, is longer than twenty-three characters. For example, "McCormack, Annabelle Margaret" would be listed as "McCormack, Annabelle Mar."

If you are unable to locate a particular given name and surname, try switching the given name to an initial, abbreviation, or possible misspelling. If the surname is not common, you may want to search only on the surname.

Date — The date on which the land transaction was recorded.

Residence — This is the location in which the individual resided. It is important to note that not all of the individuals included here were residents of Pennsylvania — sometimes they were residents of neighboring states.

Land Record I.D. — This identification number will help you link individuals together. All individuals with the same Land Record ID number were participants in the same transaction of land.

You may also learn additional information about your ancestor such as:

• Their role in the transaction of land (for example, "grantor," "grantee," "lendor," "lendor's daughter," "mortgager," "mortgagor's wife," etc.)
• Occupation
• Information about the land/property transacted
• Additional remarks about the land/property
• Book in which you'll find a copy of the original record
• Page on which you'll find a copy of the original record