Interpreting Land Records

Base retracement on solid research and historically accurate interpretation Interpreting Land Records is the industry’s most complete guide to researching and understanding the historical records germane to land surveying. Coverage includes boundary retracement and the primary considerations during new boundary establishment, as well as an introduction to historical records and guidance on effective research and interpretation. This new edition includes a new chapter titled “Researching Land Records,” and advice on overcoming common research problems and insight into alternative resources when official records are unavailable. Topical case studies provide helpful, plain-language descriptions of methods, problems, and resolutions, and appendices provide definitions, context, and modern interpretation of historical words and phrases. The text features exhaustive coverage and notes, with hundreds of case law citations annotated with expert insight that gives readers the complete background of the methods and techniques discussed. Boundary retracement entails the recovery of historical documents related to the original boundary, correct interpretation and analysis, and the accurate application of historic survey principles with correlation to conditions on the ground. This builds a legally-sound defense to the location of the boundary, and is crucial element to any project or transaction concerning land. Interpreting Land Records is the pre-eminent reference to help readers: Interpret historical land records, understanding their creation and documentation Become familiar with the various methods of historic surveys Overcome common research issues, including lost or corrupted records Establish boundaries free of vagueness or abstraction, with clear documentation Haphazard retracement leaves a boundary open to dispute and complicates future retracement efforts. Accuracy depends in part on quality research and the accurate interpretation of available documents. Interpreting Land Records provides comprehensive, practical guidance toward retracement based on sound evidence and technique.

Snee Reinhardt Charitable Foundations.

Genealogists are now using molecular genealogy--comparing and matching people by matrilineal DNA lineages--mtDNA or patrilineal Y-chromosome ancestry and/or racial percentages tests. People interested in ancestry now look at genetic markers to trace the migrations of the human species. Here's how to trace your genealogy by DNA from your grandparents back 10,000 or more years. Anyone can be interested in DNA for ancestry research, but of interest to Jews from Eastern Europe is to see how different populations from a mosaic of communities reached their current locations. From who are you descended? What markers will shed light on your deepest ancestry? You can study DNA for medical reasons or to discover the geographic travels and dwelling places of some of your ancestors. How do Europeans in general fit into the great migrations of prehistory that took all to where they are today based on their genetic DNA markers and sequences? Where is the geographic center of their origin and the roots of all people? Specifically, how can you interpret your DNA test for family history as a beginner in researching ancestry and your own family history?

Here's how to open your own online DNA-driven genealogy reporting/interpreting service business. You wouldn't do the actual DNA testing. The laboratory you contract with does the testing and sends you reports that you interpret for your clients. As a DNA-driven genealogist, you would prepare illustrated and text-driven reports, colorful CDs, brochures, press kits, covers, Web sites, and guides to interpreting the DNA-for-ancestry-based information. You would interpret tests for deep ancestry to your clients. What verbal skills and any other preparation would you need to empower consumers with knowledge from reports you receive from your partnering DNA-testing laboratory? Would you also interpret reports from genetics counselors testing for predisposition to diseases? Or emphasize only deep ancestry? Would you need a self-taught science background, a genealogy hobby, or only marketing and communications experience? Who does the actual interpreting? How would you contract with DNA laboratories to send reports and other information related to ancestry? You may be a genealogist, a personal historian, or a life story videographer thinking of partnering with a DNA-testing laboratory. Your business would be to make complex information easy to understand and interpret in plain language DNA reports from scientists to genealogy clients and surname groups. The DNA tests could be for ancestry and/or nutritional genomics issues.

Land is important to all aspects of human life and has a key role in the economic well-being of society therefore, land tenure, land ownership, and real property law is a critical part of any developed nation. Together, the processes of how land parcels are held; how they are defined, measured, and described to allow economic transactions; how they are marked to allow their use and defense; and how they are legally protected have allowed for the orderly possession and use of land. In doing so, these processes have also provided the basis for the advanced economy of most developed nations. Very often, these processes—land tenure, boundary surveying, and cadastral systems—are considered separately. They are very much interrelated, and none of these processes may be completely understood without an understanding of the others. Land Tenure, Boundary Surveys, and Cadastral Systems provides an introduction to land tenure, cadastral systems, and boundary surveying, including an understanding of the interrelationship of these areas and their role in land tenure and real property law. This is especially true considering the advent of georeferenced cadastral maps reflecting the location of land parcels relative to many other components of the physical and legal infrastructure. Although intended as a basic text for college-level surveying courses, this book should also be of significant value to cadastral mappers, real property attorneys, land title professionals, and others involved with land transactions.

Interpreting the Environment at Museums and Historic Sites is for anyone who wants to better understand the environment that surrounds us and sustains us, who wants to become a better steward of that environment, and who wants to share lessons learned with others. The process starts by focusing attention on the environment – the physical space that constitutes the largest three-dimensional object in museum collections. It involves conceptualizing spaces and places of human influence; spaces that contain layer upon layer documenting human struggles to survive and thrive. This evidence exists in natural environments as well as city centers. The process continues by adopting an environment-centric view of the spaces destined to be interpreted. This mind-set forms the basis for devising research plans that document how humans have changed, destroyed, conserved and sustained spaces over time, and the ways that the environment reacts. Interpretation built on this evidence then becomes the basis for minds-on engagement with the places that humans inhabit and the spaces that they have changed and continue to manipulate. Interpreting the Environment at Museums and Historic Sites provides a tool kit designed to help you research environmental history, document evidence of human influence on land and the environment over time, and tailor that knowledge to new public engagement. It proposes a multi-disciplinary approach that requires expertise in the humanities as well as the sciences and social sciences to best understand space and place over time. It incorporates case studies of the theory and method of environmental history to explore how human goals take lasting shape in the environment – creating working environments, getting water, generating and harnessing power, growing food, traveling and trading, building things, and preserving natural landscapes. Features include the Interpreting the Environment Tool Kit to help you launch the good work of interpreting the environment: Raw Materials (the evidence): landscape, ecosystems, artifacts, and the built environment Preparation (methods): thinking like a naturalist/scientist; thinking like a historian; combining approaches Planning (envisioning the goal): proactive message, stewardship, sustainability Partnerships (sharing work): strength in numbers; allying across disciplinary divides; united in efforts to inform the public about their individual and collective effects on the landscape and the environment Potential: educating the public about people and places is part of a world-wide goal with the cumulative effect of saving the planet, one story at a time. A Timeline and Bibliographic essay round out the book’s resources.

Learn to be a good investigator and a successful retracement surveyor In the era of CSI, forensic science has taken on an unaccustomed glamor. The fact is, forensic science plays as crucial a role in the field of land surveying and title investigation as it does in flesh-and-blood criminology. Land location, the stability of property lines, and the sanctity of title documents are of utmost interest to the legal system in general, and the court system in particular. Forensic Procedures for Boundary and Title Investigation is the first book to present the application of investigative forensic techniques to the field of land boundary retracement. Covering basic logic, document research, and the interpretation of physical evidence on site, Forensic Procedures for Boundary and Title Investigation is an indispensable guide for?surveyors faced with a difficult retracement having little or faulty evidence. Demonstrating the techniques that can be applied to boundary location, this fascinating and useful introduction to forensic science: * Covers basic logic with tips for avoiding assumptions during the investigation that might result in error and bad conclusions * Explains the standard operating procedures, common to all forensics fields, for the protection of scenes, evidence collection, and photography * Provides detailed information on records research, reconstructing historical documentation, dealing with damaged documentation, and interpreting historic records containing antiquated measurements and wording * Includes a unique presentation of physical evidence investigation techniques including interpreting stone, wood, and metal evidence found on site * Takes an international approach, presenting universal investigative techniques and methods beyond the specifics of any single country * Includes advice on using the Internet for research and how to draw upon surprising sources of historic information such as postcards, advertisements, and family histories This extensive treatment is sure to become a standard reference work for professionals in many fields related to land investigation as well as a practical text for the training of investigators in the evidence recovery and interpretative processes leading to successful property location and ownership.

Profiling more than 1400 print and electronic sources, this book helps connect librarians and researchers to the most relevant sources of information in genealogy and biography.