G2G: Solving mysteries with land titles

Question

Hi all,

Following on from a success using land titles I thought I'd alert others to the benefits with a new free space page.

Solving Mysteries with South Australian Land Titles

The advice is specific to South Australia and SAILIS, but the fact that some brick walls can be demolished with land titles remains.

Have you used land titles to good effect? Let us know.

Comments

TLDR: In the original thread we matched potential family members by noting that the titles for each individual were drawn up at the same time, in the same place, one after another. The corresponding newspaper notices indicated that only one individual had made the purchase, so one title was a gift.

Given that the searching mechanism on SAILIS is involved, the free space attempts to make sense of it.

Answer 1

Land records are great records for genealogical research. I haven't had to use them for Australia but have done extensive work with then in New Brunswick, Canada and parts of New England (USA). In a couple of cases, the New Brunswick land records have been the only source that named someone as child of someone else listed on the record. The New Brunswick records are under land grant rather than title. 

I really like the free space page explaining how the South Australia records work.

Comments

Thanks Doug.

I wonder if the use of the words "land grant" is a subtle way of saying the government is in charge, whereas the "land title" is derived from the English landed gentry that are entitled to land?

Curious.

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I think it depends on the country and time period. In the USA, there are title records and those are the records of the deed filings. I haven't tried to track the titles of land in New Brunswick since the change in ownership of land didn't have to be registered until it was sold, perhaps a hundred or more years after the original grant.

In any case, land records of any type can be very valuable resources.

Answer 2

It is unclear to me whether it is legal to display on the web land title certificates obtained from SAILIS. See their terms of use.

Comments

That is why I have not reproduced the title in it's entirety. Even if the original document was in copyright (it's not) I believe it is fair dealing to show the cropped sample for illustrative purposes.

"Fair dealing exceptions allow use of copyright material for the purposes of review or criticism, research or study, parody or satire, new reporting, judicial proceedings or legal advice." - from https://www.asauthors.org/campaigns/fair-use

Regards, Chris.