PA State Archives Hours, Directions, & Fees Research Topics Online Catalog Land Records

 

 

 


Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
Pennsylvania State Archives


RG-17
Records of the Land Office
INDEXES OF SELECTED ORIGINAL (LOOSE) SURVEYS, 1662-Present

*Links to Each Index Page*



The preceeding PDF files contain a number of partial supplemental indexes for the surveys and survey books that can be used to locate surveys for some Donation Lands tracts, some Philadelphia Bank Lots, and some Old Rights tracts and Proprietary Rights tracts among others. The series itself {#17.112} contains original surveys on individual sheets that have been laminated and are filed in the same order as the copied survey books. The following series and book numbers are used: A to Z, A-1 to A-89, B1 to B-23, BB-1 to BB-4, C-1 to C-234, and D-1 to D-114. Each survey is a drawing on a separate piece of paper giving courses and distances and the names of adjoining property owners, the name of the individual for whom the tract was surveyed, the acreage, and occasionally identifying other significant geographical features of the landscape. The endorsement "Returned" and the date on the reverse side refer to the date the Surveyor General sent the return of survey to the Secretary of the Land Office to prepare a patent.

All original Old Rights warrants and surveys for the period 1682-1732 are filed as original surveys and indexed in the Old Rights registers. Most of them are in volumes D-65 through D-114. Many Philadelphia lot surveys are found in volume D-112, pp. 1-99. Those numbered D-65 through D-90 and B-22 through B-23 have been hand copied into the copied survey books. The surveys numbered D-91 through D-114 are not copied. Surveys having one to four digit "order numbers" were prepared in response to an East Side, West Side, or New Purchase Application rather than a warrant and a warrant may never have been issued.


PA State Archives Hours, Directions, & Fees Research Topics Online Catalog Land Records