Homestead records

Who could claim land

The law opened claims to anyone who was the head of a family or at least 21 years old, and who was a citizen or had filed a declaration of intention to become one. A claimant also had to swear that he or she had never borne arms against the United States or given aid to its enemies. The act itself says he or she, so single women and widows could and did claim land, and the National Park Service notes that homesteaders included immigrants, landless farmers, single women, and formerly enslaved people.

Homesteading happened only in the 30 public land states, where the federal government owned the land to begin with. That rules out the original 13 colonies and Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and West Virginia, where land records are in state and county offices instead.

What a homestead case file holds

A case file usually begins with the homestead application and an affidavit that the claim was for the settler's own use and actual settlement. It ends, if all went well, with final proof: the settler's own sworn statement and the testimony of two witnesses that the family had lived on and cultivated the land for five years. These proofs describe the improvements, such as the house, wells dug, crops planted, trees cleared, and fences built.

Because Union veterans could subtract their military service from the five years, a file may record service details. Immigrants who had declared their intention to become citizens gave information about their naturalization, and occasionally even mentioned a place of origin. If the claimant died before proving up, the widow or heirs could finish the claim, and then the file gives a date of death and explains the family relationships.

A file can be thin or rich. The National Archives says land entry files may attest to age, place of birth, citizenship, military service, literacy, and economic status, but none of that is guaranteed in every file.

Patent or case file: two different records

The Bureau of Land Management's General Land Office Records website gives free access to images of more than five million federal land title records issued since 1820 in the public land states, though the BLM notes it does not contain every federal title record. Finding the patent there tells you that a claim was completed, and the legal description of the land by section, township, and range is the key to the case file.

The patent site only covers completed claims. A claim that was cancelled or relinquished never produced a patent, yet the National Archives notes that such a case file can hold as much information as a patented one. A missing patent does not mean your ancestor never tried to homestead.

Keep in mind that homestead was a common word. Your ancestor's land may have come through a cash entry, a preemption claim, a military bounty land warrant, or another act, and each was filed separately from homestead entries.

Reading the numbers

Before July 1908, the General Land Office filed case files by state, land office, type of entry, and final certificate number. To order one you need all four. Tract books, arranged by section, township, and range, record each entry with abbreviations: Hd, H.E., or Home. for homestead, and F.C. for final certificate. For a homestead, the number in the receipt column is the application number; it became the filing number only if the entry was cancelled, relinquished, or turned into a cash purchase.

After July 1908 all entries were filed in one series by serial patent number, so the patent number alone retrieves the file. A settler could also commute a homestead after six months by paying $1.25 an acre, which shows up as a cash purchase rather than five years of proof.