If you wanted to find out more about your ancestors, where would you start
looking? Most of us would turn to official documents such as marriage licenses
and birth records. Few of us would think of heading to the land registry office
to go through land transactions.
But using land records to conduct genealogical research is part of David
Moore's job. Moore operates a title research consulting firm out of Murray,
Utah. One of his specialties is searching through land transactions to obtain
genealogical information. (Genealogy is the study of family trees.)
"The historic land records are very good," says Moore, who admits genealogical
research is his first love. He says that you can often track a person's movements
by examining what was done with a particular piece of land.
Besides official deeds, wills are often helpful. "People often convey land
to relatives, so the names of spouses or children will be there." Searching
land deeds in a particular geographical area is also helpful. "[In the past],
families clumped together -- often they owned farms near each other."
As part of his research, Moore also checks out historic military service
records. "After the Civil War and the War of 1812, instead of payment men
were often given a certificate that allowed them to receive land. In order
to receive the land, they had to fill out an application, which has a great
deal of information on it, such as the names of wives, parents, and children."
While these are not primary records like birth certificates, Moore says
they can be very useful for people wanting to trace their ancestral roots.
Moore also conducts environmental title searches. Unlike regular title
searches, environmental searches involve exploring the history of the entire
neighborhood.
"Any time there's a sale of commercial property, whoever is lending the
money for the property wants an environmental assessment done. You're not
just looking at the property, but what was next door or down the road from
the property," explains Moore.
"If there was a gas station, a laundromat, or a photography store -- anything
that uses hazardous chemicals that might have migrated -- you want to know
about it."
Moore's work environment varies. Sometimes he finds all the information
he needs examining computer records in his office. At other times, he needs
to travel to a specific geographical location.
What he loves most about title searching is that it is never boring. "You're
always doing new things," he says. "After 30 years, I'm still learning."
Steve Reick also enjoys the challenge of title searching. "It's like detective
work," he says. "You lose a thread and you've got to think about where to
pick it up again."
Reick is an attorney in a small county midway between Jefferson City and
St. Louis in Missouri. He moved to Missouri from Illinois two years ago to
join a local law firm. Upon leaving the firm, he decided to purchase the title
searching business from his law partners.
Reick says that title searching is like going on a historical journey.
"I recently saw my first deed for slaves, and it was quite a shock." He adds
that some land deeds go back as far as the Louisiana Purchase.
"Old and bad descriptions can really be difficult," says Sydnie Crockett,
a freelance title searcher. Unlike large cities where the land has all been
surveyed and divided into lots, in rural areas some of the land deeds rely
on physical descriptions to tell where a property line begins.
"You could have a commencement point where a tree is planted," Crockett
explains, "but the problem is that the tree doesn't exist anymore." That's
when she takes out her compass and protractor and uses other parts of the
physical description to determine precisely where the property lines lie.
Like Crockett, Reick lives in a rural area. He agrees that older deeds
can be challenging. "You can have a description of a line extending from a
tree to a rock to creek, and the creek meanders and changes over hundreds
of years."
He adds that local courts have different ways of dealing with the property
disputes that inevitably crop up. "Here, if the land is deeded along a property
line but there's a fence [in a different spot] that's been there for years
and years, the court will commonly grant property lines to the fence."
Automation is a big issue in title searching. It is still common in rural
areas for title searchers to depend on the physical records at the local land
registry office. But Reick firmly believes that to survive in this business
you must automate.
"You have to be able to make your search efficiently," says Reick, who
is currently tackling the time-consuming process of inputting hundreds of
records into a computer system. "You have to be able to meet deadlines."
Title searcher Shelley Porter has a different perspective. She has seen
enormous changes since joining her firm as a university graduate over 20 years
ago.
"The automation and technical change has been enormous, " she says. "Twenty
years ago, it was all done by hand. Now, I would say 97 percent is done by
computer."
She feels that this is having a negative impact on the title search industry.
"It's a sunset industry," she says. "It might last 10 to 15 years or even
longer, but it's shrinking." Porter believes that eventually law firms will
take over title searching, and firms like hers will cease to exist.
She says it's impossible to predict what impact this will have on individual
title searchers -- whether law firms will hire them or whether title searching
will become a task a paralegal performs along with other duties.
"I have a 17-year-old son and I wouldn't encourage him to take up this
career," she says. On a more positive note, Porter admits that ultimately
it's impossible to predict the future.