Overview: This revised index has been created for the original Monroe County Land Record books A-X (circa 1817-1863), held by the Monroe County History Center’s Library. If a land record transaction is located in the index, a copy of that page from the record book can be viewed in the Library. If a physical copy of one or more pages is desired, it can be obtained by a request to the History Center’s staff.

Because the original indexes were created from hand-written indexes created by the county clerk, and not from the actual land record books, mistakes and omissions were carried over into the Library’s first edition of these indexes. Beginning in May 2003, the original four indexes were checked for errors through examination of each page of each book of land records. Errors were corrected, omitted entries added and the revised database was printed in the following two sections, the first alphabetically by Grantor (seller) name, and the second by Grantee (buyer).

The index can be searched for grantor and grantee name via the Find In Page function (CNTR-F) of a web browser. The original database has been revised in Microsoft Access 2002. Read-only copies of the index files can be searched in Access 2002 in the Monroe County Historical Society’s History Center.

Each index entry contains the following information:

A typical index entry looks like this:

An index entry with multiple grantors, two husbands and wives whose surnames are Noel and Fay, starts like this:

Abbreviations: First names are not abbreviated in the index unless only abbreviations are found in the land records. No periods are used. Some non-name abbreviations are used in the index entries. In many cases these are carried over from the actual records, but others have been modified for consistency:

Handwriting: The land record entries are mostly handwritten, and nineteenth century writing conventions sometimes need interpretation. (There are standard genealogical references for this problem. See, for example, chapter 2 in Greenwood, Val D., The Researcher’s Guide to American Genealogy, 3^rd Ed. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co.) Oftentimes spelling of names is inconsistent within entries. The indexer crosschecked the various versions of the name that appeared throughout, but usually used the name as spelled on the signature line at the end of the entry if differences occurred.

Typical Land Record Entries: There are several "formats" for the entries, but a typical entry begins with "This indenture…" and proceeds with a date, followed by name and residence of the grantor, or seller ("party of the first part") and then name and residence of the grantee, or buyer ("party of the second part.") This is followed by a legal description of the land being purchased, padded with much standard legal language, concluding with the signature lines for the grantor(s) (but not the grantee) and county official. Another section follows, in which a county official certifies that the grantor(s) appeared before them and freely agreed to the selling of the land. In cases in which the transaction was made outside of Monroe County, but recorded there, additional certifications attesting to the authenticity of the outside county officials are often found.

Individual transactions do not necessarily begin at the top of a page, nor are they limited to a single page, although some single pages contain more than one, if the transaction entries are very brief -- they might be missed if the user is not careful.

Non-Land Transactions: The vast majority of transactions involve land, but some have to do with other property, including livestock and other non-land goods. In early years there are occasional indentures recorded (for example, see Book A, Page 41, for Anaca Johnson’s transaction with John Sedwick in 1820). Two instances of manumissions of slaves are found, one involving Michael in 1830 from Book C, p. 179, (see the Monroe County Historian, Vol. 2004 Issue 1 for a complete account), and Simon and ten others in 1841, Book H, p. 348.

There are some plats recorded; these are indexed arbitrarily as "Plat" in the Grantor category, and therefore are found together in a single section in the alphabetical listing of Grantors. The location of the plat is also noted. See Book A, page 5, for the original plat of downtown Bloomington.

In addition, mortgages are recorded, confiscations of land for debt (Book I, p. 389) and sheriff’s sales (Book J, p. 228) noted, and periodic elections of the trustees in area churches are listed (Book I, p. 299). Occasional declarations of the poor being made the responsibility of the "Overseers of the Poor" (Book F, p. 510) are included. In 1841 (Book H, p. 694) a man gave over to another the care of his two young daughters.

Error checking and correcting for the original index book 1 (land record books A-I) was completed in April 2004 by Lee Ehman, History Center volunteer.

Compilation of this index was assisted by an Indiana Heritage Research Grant. The grant was from the Indiana Historical Society, the Indiana Humanities Council, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The research and in-kind matching donations were from the Monroe County Historical Society & Genealogy Chapter through the efforts of the entire Archive Committee. The researcher who entered the data for a particular portion of the index is noted on the title page. Proof reading and corrections were carried out by Nola Donley, Allison Lendman, and Julian Livingston. Julian Livingston was responsible for the data entry program, the database processing and the production of this printed listing of the database.

The existence of this printed listing is almost incidental since an important goal of the project was to get the data into electronic form for distribution on the World Wide Web. The data published on the web as of June 1998 was as follows:

http://www.kiva.net/~mchm/land1.htm Book 1, c1817-c1844, researched by Pat Mitchell

http://www.kiva.net/~mchm/land1.htm Book 2, c1817-c1844, researched by Pat Mitchell

http://www.kiva.net/~mchm/land1.htm Book 3, c1817-c1844, researched by Allison Lendman

http://www.kiva.net/~mchm/land1.htm Book 4, c1817-c1844, researched by Nola Donley

Each web page of data is approximately 200 kilobytes which is the upper limit of what is convenient at a 14.4 kilobit downloading rate to a personal computer on a switched connection. Using the find command of a web browser the data can be searched for either grantor or grantee. In a slightly different form the same data can be searched by computer for either grantor or grantee in the Genealogy Library of the Monroe County Historical Society, 202 E. Sixth St., Bloomington, IN 47408.

Rarely, the date or other data, such as the grantee, may have been omitted in the source index. Should the researcher encounter such a condition, reference should be made to the originally recorded deed or document. The date ranges offered contain the bulk of entries; however, some data exists outside the dates stated as "circa" because deeds are sometimes recorded long after the actual transactions took place. Despite all efforts to the contrary, the usual boiler-plate remarks about the possibility of errors must apply. This list has been fully alphabetized both according to grantor, then grantee.

Julian Livingston
Chair of the Genealogical Society and Archive Committee