This is quite impressive. Last year an instrument was recorded naming two trust entities as grantees:
- Carlyle Lippincott 1998 Heritage Trust
- Mary Elizabeth Lippincott 1998 Heritage Trust.
So, how did the names of those those grantees get indexed? Did you guess any of the following?
- CARLYLE LIPPONCOTT 1998 HERITAGE TRUST
- LIPPINCOTT CARLYLE 1998 HERITAGE TRUST
- MARY ELIZZABETH LIPPINCOTT 1998 HERITAGE TRUST
- LIPPINCOTT MARY ELZIABETH 1998 HERITAGE TRUST
I sure didn't.
> This is quite impressive. Last year an instrument was recorded naming two trust entities as grantees:
>
> - Carlyle Lippincott 1998 Heritage Trust
>
> - Mary Elizabeth Lippincott 1998 Heritage Trust.
>
> So, how did the names of those those grantees get indexed? Did you guess any of the following?
>
> - CARLYLE LIPPONCOTT 1998 HERITAGE TRUST
>
> - LIPPINCOTT CARLYLE 1998 HERITAGE TRUST
>
> - MARY ELIZZABETH LIPPINCOTT 1998 HERITAGE TRUST
>
> - LIPPINCOTT MARY ELZIABETH 1998 HERITAGE TRUST
>
> I sure didn't.
Yep,
I've seen stuff like that. In the localities that I work every one needs a cover sheet for scanning so that the deputy clerks don't have to take the time to index anything. Mostly the variations are the result of poorly trained/indifferent office staff at the law offices where the cover sheets are generated.
You gotta be on your toes these day and use the * wildcard to its fullest.
Carl
If you need help with research
Karoly's an expert.
Seriously.
Don
> Mostly the variations are the result of poorly trained/indifferent office staff at the law offices where the cover sheets are generated.
That particular instrument was indexed by one of the County Clerk's Deputies and not in some rural county where they're lucky to have someone willing to run for County Clerk to begin with. I'm of the opinion for every advance in technology, there is an inexhaustible supply of dimwits who will do their best to cancel whatever advantage the technology offered.
Microfilm? Yeah, but let's have it all shot so that nobody will be able to actually read it. It'll same time and we'll have it all on MICROFILM!
Fax machine? Yeah, fax me that written description so we can attach it to the deed as an Exhibit. It won't be perfect, but, hey, folks will get the idea even it they can't read every line!
Computer indices? Yeah, but let's not put any of the skilled Deputies on actually compiling the indices. What could go wrong?
Garbage in, garbage out.
Let's talk churchs
In my home county you never know how churches are going to be indexed. Sometimes you start under "church" and go from there. Sometimes by denomination. Sometimes by church name. And finally, you might find it under the trustees.
Then there are state agencies. Sometimes under "Virginia", sometimes under "Commonwealth of Virginia", and sometimes under the agency.
Fun stuff!
Let's talk churchs
> In my home county you never know how churches are going to be indexed. Sometimes you start under "church" and go from there. Sometimes by denomination. Sometimes by church name. And finally, you might find it under the trustees.
Same thing for conveyances and dedications to counties in the parts of Texas familiar to me. Grantee can be county name, county judge, "County of Something", "Something, County of".
Ditto on steroids for rural school districts. You have to figure out which schools were consolidated into one entity and when, and what the various names were by which they were known throughout their earlier existence. Even then, the conveyance or dedication to the school may have been to the County Judge or to the Trustees of the School.
This is why a well designed computer search engines should be able to return results for any string in the field ... IF you had searched for the grantor as 1998, it should return all of those. But, unfortunately, a lot of those ancient proprietary government programs don't have this feature. But even if they did, there is no excuse for people to misspell names, etc.
Let's talk churchs
And that is called "research."
Sheesh, if it was easy, everyone would want to do it.
Don
> This is why a well designed computer search engines should be able to return results for any string in the field
Yes, the fact of life for county government seems to be purchasing from the lowest bidder, whether it's microfilming services or digital records storage and retrieval systems and software.
Let's talk churchs
> And that is called "research."
Yeah, but as digital indices are assembled, it doesn't make any sense to produce a system that simply reproduces the flaws in the original. I mean, we now know that certain schools were taken into other school districts and they in turn were consolidated into the present forms, for example.
The passage of time guarantees that puzzles will continue to form faster than they can be solved. I don't think there's any risk of some future generation of surveyors running out of puzzles to work on.