Plat recreation is a bit of alchemy and a bit
of hard work rolled into one very messy ball.
Some counties have been entirely replatted,
but far too few and King William is not one
of them. The end value of GIS for most
counties will eventually be that the land tax
parcels will go onto GIS. However, when
someone recognizes that the real value will
be in replatting all of the property changes
in the county over time, that is when it will
come of age. Of course, all of the folks who
do the 60 year title searches for land sales
will be out of work.

The survey accuracy is anything from very
good to "where in the world is it?" Most
folks, in my experience, have to go several
miles off the subject property to find
anchors, such as the intersection of two
waterbodies and then find another anchor to
place the property they're interested in.
I've had to go 2.5 miles out to do one in
Spotsylvania Co. The problem is that the
accuracy of the survey instruments must be
borne in mind. Some were accurate to several
degrees in the 17th century and over time
increase their accuracy. Trying to translate
linear distance onto hilly terrain is an
especially interesting exercise, but with
appropriate CAD, can be translated more
easily than with other means.

A commercially available program called
Deedmapper has been used to good effect to
rapidly plat metes and bounds from multiple
adjoining properties. It is quite instructive
to observe the errors in adjacent land
patents to see what you're up against.

Might I inquire as to where your parcel is
located? I have replatted the College lands
for a paper I'm working on.

Lyle

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