Using this microfilm, UNL has created an online index to the records. This pilot project is the precursor to new partnerships and, we hope, to new scholarship. Many person hours were devoted to the project by National Park Service volunteers and staff, and by faculty, staff, and administrators at UNL.
As new developments are announced, look for changes on this site. Agriculture, industrialization, immigration, American Indian tribes and prairie ecosystems-all were somehow impacted and forever changed by the implementation of this revolutionary land law. What are the Homestead Records? Over the course of the Act's year history, over two million individual homestead claims were made.
Each and every one of these claims generated a written record known as a case file that was kept by the U. General Land Office. Today, these case files exist only as paper originals and are stored in the National Archives in Washington, D.
The complete collection of case files created under the Homestead Act contains over 30 million individual pieces of paper. These invaluable documents are subject to natural deterioration, fire and water damage. Since , Homestead National Historical Park has been involved in a project that aims to eventually digitize all 30 million documents of the homestead case files collection. To view an original homestead case file and learn more about the kinds of valuable information that can be found in these records, view the Neve case file.
The land records that are generally of most interest to genealogists are the land entry case files. These are records that document the transfer of public lands from the U. Government to private ownership. There are over ten million such individual land transactions in the custody of the National Archives.
These case files cover land entries in all 30 public land states. The case files were filed as either military bounty land warrants, pre general land entry files, or as post land entry files. The information required to access and order copies of the records will differ depending on which of these 3 categories the transaction falls into. For land records in the remaining 20 states that were never part of the original public domain, check the State Archives for that particular state.
Federal public land refers to territories and later states that were not part of the original 13 colonies, or were at some point, their own country, such as Texas.
The distribution of land within these areas is or was under the administrative control of the Federal Government, specifically the Department of the Interior, General Land Office, and later the Bureau of Land Management. There were 30 public land states. For the 20 states that were never public land states you should start your research with the State Archives or Historical Society.
The first thing a researcher needs to know is when and where their ancestors settled. A good place to start with is the census records.
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