Land! Ho!
Land records! Between the introduction of the full-text search of FamilySearch's U.S. Land Records Collection, and my recent study of these documents to narrow Joseph Becker's immigration window, it's been a good few months for land records in my research life. One main benefit of the FamilySearch full-text search in land records is that it doesn't merely focus on the grantor and grantee as an index might. It also finds anyone else who might have been named in the document: witnesses, neighboring landowners, recording clerks, etc. I decided to do another search in this new tool. My ancestor Joseph Becker has been named in Wyoming County, New York, land transactions under both the Becker and Baker surname, so I searched under Joseph Baker. Wow! He is mentioned in so many Wyoming County deed records, not only as the grantor or grantee, but also as the owner or former owner of land bounding properties being sold to others. Before the advent of this tool, I would have had
