Pennsylvania Warrant Township Maps

Kris Hocker on 12 Feb 2010

I’m always looking for new ways to research my family. Living in New England, I’m a long way away from sources of Pennsylvania information. So, I especially love to find FREE sources of information ONLINE. The Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission and State Archives usually have something good.

Jacob Hoover's German twp property

Jacob Hoover’s German Township property

In the past I’ve used the online Pennsylvania Warrant records and Patent indexes and the Copied Survey books to find surveys for land my ancestor settled. On my most recent visit to the site, I noticed that they’ve added PDF files of the Warrantee Township Maps.

These show the all the original land purchases within the context of the present-day townships. You can see your ancestor’s property in and amongst their neighbors. The map also provides the name of warrantee, name of patentee, number of acres, name of tract, and dates of warrant, survey and patent. It makes a nice summary and geographical index of the warrant/patent information of each township.

Please remember that the townships are shown by present-day boundaries. I spent some time looking in the townships referred to in the surveys I’ve obtained. Several townships later, I finally found what I was looking for. So, make sure you look in the current township.

While you can download these file to view, you can’t print them. However, if you’re interested in getting a paper copy, you can purchase one from the archives.

Drop me a reply and let me know what you find!

Cite This Page:

, "Pennsylvania Warrant Township Maps," A Pennsylvania Dutch Genealogy, the genealogy & family research site of Kris Hocker, modified 22 Mar 2017 (https://www.krishocker.com/pennsylvania-warrant-township-maps/ : accessed 21 Dec 2024).

Content copyright © 2017 Kris Hocker. Please do not copy without prior permission, attribution, and link back to this page.

5 Replies to “Pennsylvania Warrant Township Maps”

  1. Eric 6 Jan 2017 at 8:25 pm

    Please understand this: when looking at these maps, even though you may see a name you are looking for that is associated with these parcels of land, that person may not have lived there. The names on the survey maps are the people in whose name the “return of survey” was provided. Many times, after a return of survey is provided, that person sells the land. That person may have never lived there, or, not have even stepped foot on the land at all….many of these people were simply land speculators that were making investments, no different than today. Sure, many times the people associated with these parcels lived there, but many times they did not as well.

  2. Jim Bohrman 19 Jun 2010 at 9:29 pm

    Can’t find the Manheim Township file for Schuylkill County then Berks County

    1. Kris 24 Jun 2010 at 6:17 pm

      Jim, it may not have been created. The townships listed look to me to all be in the northeastern half of the county. Here’s what the PHMC says on the site:

      Warrantee maps have been produced ONLY for the specific townships in the counties listed in the links above. When the Land Office began fashioning these useful tools, there was no “master plan” governing which townships were mapped and which were not. Initially, maps were created for counties in which there was a great interest in the original warrantees and patentees, such as Lancaster and Dauphin. The northern tier counties were also mapped because they were deemed to be easier to fabricate, having primarily rectangular tracts of similar sizes. Other township maps were created because their particular county or region was a favorite of a specific Land Office worker. The map project ended in the mid-1990s, with no new warrantee township maps presently being produced by the State Archives.

      So, if it’s not listed, it most likely was never created. Sorry.

  3. Randy Seaver 12 Feb 2010 at 6:53 pm

    Excellent tip, Kris. I blogged about it for my own patentee.

    Thanks for the lead! — Randy Seaver

    1. Kris 13 Feb 2010 at 5:15 pm

      Thanks for the nod, Randy on your blog posting!

Comments are closed.