User:Pipkincm/Sandbox

These are the items that I found on the wiki that either I want to edit/create or that I'll suggest someone else gives attention to. If you've been asked to collaborate, please review the topic of interest and add to the "discussion" tab.

Land and Property
Recorder of Deeds Luzerne County Courthouse 200 North River Street Wilkes Barre, PA 18711 Phone: (570) 825-1641

Due to the lack of vital records for Pennsylvania, land records are an important tool in early Pennsylvania research. Land records will list the seller and purchaser of the property and may hide clues to family connections. Land records for Luzerne County are available from the recorder's office for 1786 to the present.


 * Images are available on-line from 1968 to the present using the Landex system. There is a fee to view the images.
 * Deeds, 1787-1901; Indexes to Deeds, 1780-1907

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Land records in Luzerne County began in 1786. These records are filed with the Recorder of Deeds office in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania.

Land and property records can place an ancestor in a particular location, provide economic information, and reveal family relationships. Land records include: deeds, abstracts, indexes, mortgages, leases, grants, sheriff sales, land patents, and maps. Property records include liens as well as livestock brands and estray records.

The following are examples of available resources:

Online Land Records


 * 1968–present Images are available online using the Landex system. There is a fee to view the images.

Land Records on Microfilm


 * 1780–1907 Deeds, 1787-1901; Indexes to Deeds, 1780-1907 The earlier indexes for what would become Luzerne County are for the most part in Northumberland County.
 * 1788–1924 Mortgage Indexes.

Additional Resources

Note that the "Maps" section below also includes maps related to land ownership.

See Pennsylvania Land and Property for more information about using land records, especially about original land warrants, surveys, and patents filed at the state land office.

Additional resources can sometimes be found using search phrases such as Luzerne County Pennsylvania Land in online catalogs such as:


 * Historical Society of Pennsylvania
 * WorldCat (For instructions see WorldCat Online Catalog.)
 * (For instructions see FHL Catalog Place-name Search.)



Suggested Text for County Probate Pages
Probate records are court records created after an individual’s death that relate to a court’s decisions regarding the distribution of the estate to the heirs or creditors and the care of any dependents. These documents are important to family history researchers because they usually exist for time periods before civil birth and death records were kept.

The [court] has responsibility for the probate records of [name] County.

The following [name] County probate records have been indexed or abstracted:

Suggested State Census Records "Overview" Text
[The State] often took censuses in the years between the federal censuses, the dates are listed below. State census records may have columns that were different or more unusual than those found on federal censuses, [make this specific for the state, such as the 1892 gives religion or 1925 gives a married woman’s maiden name]. The responses and years of coverage may give additional information on the family.

State Censuses
For a list of state and territorial censuses:


 * Lainhart, Ann S. State Census Records. Baltimore: Genealogical Publ., 1992. (FHL book X2Lai.) State-by-state list of censuses, and selected census substitutes. Describes dates, coverage, content, indexes and availability.

In addition, the staff of the Family History Library has compiled the following register which lists all state census records available at the library:


 * Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Family History Library, US/Canada Reference Staff, State Census Register, 3 vols. (Salt Lake City: Family History Library, 2005). FHL Ref. book 973 X23us. Available free online through Brigham Young University's Family History Archive: Vol. 1, Alabama - Kansas; Vol. 2, Kentucky - New York; Vol. 3, North Carolina - Wyoming.

Articles

 * Orphan Trains
 * Link "legal ages" page to land, military, court, immigration, and vital records pages.
 * Mining
 * Northern Liberties, Pennsylvania