Before I answer this question I need to ask you one. What kind of family historian are you? Are you content to just gather names to put on a family group sheet or are you one who wants to know as much as possible about what your ancestor's life was like or wonders why they ended up in such and such a place? Are you one who wishes you could walk where your ancestors walked or find a house where they lived or the church where they gathered on Sundays? If you are the first type, then land records can fill in some gaps on your family group sheet. But it is the second type of family historian that will love land records because of all the types of old records we family historians consult, it is land records that have the most potential to bring our ancestors alive for us.
     In most of the articles I have read about land records the author skims over the bulk of land records and focuses on patents and warrants. This is a shame because every type of land record has the potential to give us information and send us off to search places and records we may never have thought about.
     I have been using land records for well over 30+ years now and of all the old records I use, land records are one of my favorites. Over the years they have given me names for my unknown women, they have led me to old cemeteries where I have found the names of babies who lived and died between census years. I have walked the streets of old towns and looked at many of the same buildings my ancestors saw. I have walked on my ancestor's property, stood in their homes or walked around crumbled foundations. I have found the remains of old chimneys and stood before them picturing one of my great-great-grandmothers cooking meals or the family gathered around the fireplace on a cold night.
     They have allowed me to add flesh to the bare bones of name and dates. They have sometimes given me a clue to the personality of my ancestor I could not have found anywhere else. For example: I had to chuckle the day I found a deed where one of my great grandfathers, reportedly very staid and upstanding, put up a racing surry and matched team of bay mares as security for a loan at a local store. A deed citing a homestead patent led me to the homestead file for one of my ancestors. It laid out before me a drawing of his land, a list of his crops and animals, testimonies to his honesty and his standing in the community, the names of his wife and children and a short story of his life over 5 years. An old trust deed told me that my ancestor was a God-fearing man who pledged his own land as security for a loan to build a church. A deed told me that one of my ancestors served in a war and was presenting a bounty warrant for his land. The bounty warrant file gave me a physical description, the name of his unit, which in turn led me to history books that told me what campaigns he fought in and where his unit traveled, and that in turn answered the question, "Why did they move THERE"? A whisper from a deed sent me to the pension files where I read sworn statements as to where my ancestor was born, when and who he married (both wives), the names of all children (living and dead), all the places he and his family had lived over the years, an account of his war service, his injuries, his health and statements from friends and neighbors about him.
     It is the rare land record that doesn't offer us some type of clue or a piece of new information or a new avenue to explore.
     If you are a family historian who is not interested in all of these things, then this book won't interest you much, but if you are a family historian who is now breathing faster and saying "Oh Yes!" then come on along with me and let me explain how you can mine the treasures of land records.

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