Announcing An Index to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Online Deeds

Books A through D, Covering 1729-1760

My latest endeavor—An Index to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Online Deeds, Book A-D, 1729-1760— has gone live at Amazon as a Kindle book. It’s creation was fraught with indecision and frustration as I tried to figure out the best way to take the information from spreadsheet to the limited format of the Kindle ebook.

I once read somewhere that the majority of Americans have ancestors who lived or passed through Lancaster County at some point. That’s certainly true for my family—nearly my entire paternal line lived in Lancaster County after immigrating to America. This book indexes the buyers and sellers of land in the earliest days after the county’s formation in 1729.

Land was wealth to our ancestors. And deeds, which record the transfer of land between people, are an excellent place to learn about them. Not only will a deed place a person in a specific place at a specific time, but it can also teach us about the relationships between people—not only the buyer and seller, but sometimes the previous owners, as well. Deeds also name spouses, occupations and neighbors. In the case of estate settlements, deeds can even provide the make-up of a family by naming the heirs—most often children, but sometimes cousins, grandchildren, etc.—and their spouses. Tracing the ownership of a piece of land through multiple deeds can often provide data on multiple generations of a family.

This books indexes the online images of Lancaster County deeds found at the county’s Recorder of Deeds website. Although deeds are available online for the years 1729 through 1986, only those after 1981 are searchable.

Each listing in my book provides the following:
•    Grantor (name of each individual)
•    Grantee (name of each individual)
•    Book
•    Volume (as required)
•    Page number
•    Image number
•    Date of deed
•    Date recorded
•    Property location or type of deed (e.g., quitclaim, mortgage, etc.)

There is only a loose correlation between the page and the actual film frame number, so I’ve provided both the page and image number for each entry to provide direct access to the correct online page. Instruction for using the online efilm reader are included in the book and can also be found here on my website.

See more of my books here.

• Category: Books, Resources
• Tag: Deeds, Index