Grantor Indexes, Grantee Indexes or a Combo? – Belmont, Ohio

Counties across the country use different methods to index their deeds, probates, naturalizations and other records. They are generally based on some alphabetical combination.  It may be as simple as using separate sections of the index book for each surname that begins with a particular letter.  All the grantors whose surnames begin with “A” are listed in order of when they recorded the deed.   Or it might be a more complicated arrangement using two or three letters in the surname, perhaps combined with the first letter of the given name.

FamilySearch continues to digitize more records, making available record images that are not searchable by name and can only be browsed.  But if you know how to use these county level indexes, you should have no trouble locating your ancestor in these valuable records.  

I’ve written before about the Graves Tabular Initial Index and a West Virginia will index.  I’ve been working on a presentation on the ins and outs of indexes for the Lewis County Genealogical Society next month, so I thought I’d write about using another indexing scheme.

Most counties I have run across have a set of Grantor indexes listing people who sold (or otherwise transferred) property, along with a similar set of Grantee indexes for people who purchased property.  But Belmont County, Ohio combines the two into one set of books.  How does that work?
 
To start with, you need to know the surname and first name of the party you are interested in.  You can access the deed indexes for Belmont at https://familysearch.org/search/catalog/247145.  Across the top of each page in the Deed Index for Belmont is a chart.  The first letter of the surnames are listed across the page, and beneath each of these letters are the 26 letters corresponding to the first letter of the given name.  Next to each of these letters is a page number where you will find that Last Name/Given Name combination listed.

Here’s the chart shown at the top of all the left-hand pages in the books:

I should find any transactions for Peter Cilles on page 72.
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And when I go to page 72, here’s what I see for Peter:

You can see that there are 2 columns with names.  The index only applies to the first column.  Between the two “Name” columns is a narrow strip with either “to” or “F” (for “From”) recorded.  In the first entry, Peter Chilles et al are transferring property TO Jno. M. Korcher.  In the third entry, P. R. Cook et al are acquiring property FROM Mary Smith et al.  Looking to the right we can see the volumes and pages where we can find the actual deeds (and get some idea who theses “et al” others actually are.)  The index also gives a very brief description of the property, showing the number of acres, the Section, Township and Range where the property is located and what the transfer price was.
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In this case Peter Cilles is my person of interest, and I now have all the information I need to find his deed.   If Jno Korcher was my guy, the letter table above would point me to find the corresponding entry in the same book on page 225.

​The transaction with Peter Cilles is the third one down, but you can see that John Korcher acquired a number of pieces of property in Section 25 around that same time.
 
This kind of index is an efficient way to search.  You can find all the transactions for your ancestor for a given time span, both buying and selling, all in the same book.  Happy hunting!