I think it is pretty much up to the individual county. In an effort to
track down some shady land dealings in this neck of the woods, over the past
couple of months I have spent time in the records rooms of Clarke, Frederick
and Loudoun Counties Virginia, plus Jefferson County West Virginia.
Much to my surprise and delight, all have computerized access to images of
land records, but the Virginia counties are pretty well limited to the last
decade or two. All retrieval systems are different and range from the
pretty good to not so good.
Jefferson County WV is the most interesting in that they are commited to go
back in time as far as they can. They already have some records up on the
system back to the early 1900's. I asked where they got the people and the
funding but did not get a good answer. The county is home to Charlestown
Races and Slots, and I have heard the County is rolling in income from the
take, so maybe a local historical group has convinced them to use some of
the $$$ to preserve records. But their system is so user-hostile, that I
brought the terminal down twice and had to call for help..... pressing the
ESC key does terrible things, which blows my usual recovery adage, "If
nothing else works, press ESC." In this case, that insures that nothing
else will work until the tech support person comes by and signs on again.
As I recall, all four systems did a pretty good job of bringing up records
that were something like what you wanted. That did not sound right. What I
mean is that ther is often no consistency when the records are entered.
e.g. "Ima Landgrabber, TTE", "Landgrabber Enterprises", "I.C. Landgrabber"
usually would all come up.
Having used paper and microfilm, I think the computerized approach is far
superior to both, but then I worked for IBM for 25 years! Some people
prefer the paper systems -- say that some indexes have been missed. But I
have not found anybody who prefers the microfilm system.
I am under the impression that for backup purposes, all land records are
regularly microfilmed and sent tomewhere to Richmond for storage and
preservation, but that may be just legend.
Randy Cabell
----- Original Message -----
From: "Debra Jackson/Harold Forsythe" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, September 08, 2005 1:47 PM
Subject: Re: local land records in decline
> Isn't there a project at the Library of Virginia to safeguard through
> microfilming all the country and city records in courthouses throughout
> Virginia? I thought that this project was being pushed vigorously. Not
> that I think that the originals should be discarded (I personally prefer
> paper to microfilm), but the key thing is that this valuable information
> be
> retained for research.
>
> Am I wrong about the microfilm project?
>
> Harold S. Forsythe
> Visiting Fellow (2005-2006)
> Program in Agrarian Studies
> Yale University
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Douglas Day" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Thursday, September 08, 2005 12:33 PM
> Subject: local land records in decline
>
>
>> Who is in charge, at the state level, of /local/, i.e., county, land
>> records and deed books?
>>
>> A certain circuit court clerk in a certain county is notoriously
>> uninterested in maintaining/preserving old land records in her charge,
>> and a local gentleman has expressed concern, and a willingness to help
>> raise funds to make copies.
>>
>> Any suggestions?
>>
>> --
>> Dr. Douglas Day
>> Executive Director
>> Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society
>> 200 Second St., NE
>> Charlottesville, VA 22902
>> 434-296-1492
>> www.albemarlehistory.org
>>
>>
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>>
>
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>
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