226. Archives Volunteer Adds New Land Record Database

    Volunteer Walter Jolly has put in numerous hours so that we could use the Crawfordsville Land Office records in digital form. Note the Press Release below from the Indiana Commission on Public Records. [Underlining is mine.]

            INDIANAPOLIS (February 27, 2013) – New material from the Crawfordsville Land Office has been made available through the nationally-recognized Indiana Digital Archives (digitalarchives.IN.gov). The Crawfordsville Land Office Index includes more than 38,000 records of purchases of public lands from Benton, Boone, Carroll, Clay, Clinton, Fountain, Hendricks, Monroe, Montgomery, Morgan, Owen, Parke, Putnam, Tippecanoe, Vermillion, Warren, and White Counties. Sales of public land at the Crawfordsville Land Office began in September of 1820 and continued until 1853.

            Researchers will find the names of the purchasers of public land, original date of purchase, as well as a legal description of the tract purchased. Users of the Bureau of Land Management’s online database of patentees (www.glorecords.blm.gov) can use the Indiana Public Lands Database to locate the same parcel of land in order to narrow the original purchase date of their ancestor’s tract, which preceded the patent date.

            “Thanks to the efforts of the Indiana State Archives’ volunteers, early Indiana land records are now more accessible than ever,” said Jim Corridan, State Archivist of Indiana. The Crawfordsville Land Office records were indexed by Indiana State Archives’ volunteer Dr. Walter Jolly.

            With the addition of the Crawfordsville Land Office Index, the Indiana Public Lands Database contains nearly 220,000 records of public lands purchased from four Indiana land districts: Vincennes, Fort Wayne, LaPorte-Winamac, and Crawfordsville. Two districts – Jeffersonville and Indianapolis – remain to be indexed.