Daily AncestorFind a homestead patent
Look for a federal land patent for one ancestor who farmed in a public land state, and write down what you would need to order the case file.
The patent is free to find online, and its numbers are the key to the case file, which holds most of the family detail and can give age, citizenship, military service and the witnesses' statements.
Your steps this week
- Use census records to confirm when and where the family farmed, in one of the 30 public land states.
- Search the Bureau of Land Management's free General Land Office Records site by name and state.
- Copy the land office, date, legal description, type of entry, and certificate or serial patent number.
- If there is no patent, remember that a cancelled or relinquished claim never produced one, and check the tract book for the land.
- Note what the National Archives needs to find the case file: before July 1908, state, land office, type of entry and final certificate number.