Recently I was reviewing electronic Grantee and Grantor Deeds in Juneau County, Wisconsin at https://www.co.juneau.wi.gov/register-of-deeds1.html. The county register of deeds has scanned and made pdf file extensions available for the years 1880 – 1989 for researchers to look at Grantee/Grantor Index.

The files are in year increments of five years or so and ordered also by alphabetical by the surname. These files provide in columns the type of instrument and number, i.e., warranty deed, mortgage, etc., next if looking at the buyer (grantee) you will find the name and the seller (grantor), next the recorded volume and page in the deed book. With the instrument number and the deed booklet volume and page, you can ask the Register of Deeds office for help in the full description of the deed down at the time your ancestor either bought or sold land in the area.

Eventually I was provided the details of my great-grandfathers purchase of farm land in 1897. Once I learned the township number, range and section area, I could better pinpoint on an original plat map for the area and time to identify my great-grandfather’s name on the map. When I found his name on the map I was excited to see and wonder about many other items about his time on this land. I wanted to learn more about the landscape and area he owned. I was able to see on the plat map that a railroad went across part of his 130 acres of farm.

Some other resources I looked at to learn more about the land, was to locate the original survey maps and notes from when the state and area of interest was laid out by the government. To do this I consulted Wisconsin Public Land Survey Records: Original Field Notes and Plat Maps at https://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/SurveyNotes/SurveyNotesHome.html

One of the key items you will need is the actual legal section line to locate the land of interest. The quickest way is to look at your plat map and also the deed information you collected (like above). Once you have this information you be able to learn what the original surveys saw and described in notes about the land at the time the survey was conducted. For my area of interest that was in 1851. For some areas of southern and eastern Wisconsin those surveys can go back to the 1830s. One of the interesting items is to learn what the landscape looked like prior to the modern age and before most European immigrants came.