Land Records:Rich Resources for Relationships

Land and deed records were created by ancestors during the colonial era, from state-land-states, in federal lands, and as military bounties. Some records in deed books had nothing to do with land or property. We will introduce these, some deed vocabulary, and follow case studies of how deed records were integral to finding relationships.

Rebecca Whitman Koford holds credentials as a Certified Genealogist® and as a Certified Genealogical LecturerSM. She focuses on research in Maryland, Upstate New York, Virginia, the District of Columbia, colonial records, military records from the Revolution through the Civil War, federal records at the National Archives (D.C.), and land records of all types. She is co-author of the recently released NGS Research in the States series book on Maryland. Rebecca is a graduate and former mentor of the ProGen Study Group and served as its Administrator from 2015–2020. She speaks at national conferences and regularly teaches at institutes, most recently the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG) and the Institute of Genealogical and Historical Research (IGHR). She served as Executive Director of the Board for Certification of Genealogists® from 2018–2024. In 2021, she was named as Director of the Genealogical Institute on Federal Records (Gen-Fed) in Washington, D.C. She takes clients and runs her business under the name Rebecca Whitman Koford Genealogical Research, LLC.

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