Most of Spotsylvania patents have been platted in Deedmapper; major
portions, if not all of King William has  been done and published in
_Tidewater Virginia Families_ a quarterly published by Virginia H. Davis.

There  is a website that gives the declination depending upon the year and
place, but I do not have it at hand. Check the Deedmapper listserve.

Barbara Vines Little, CG
PO Box 1273
Orange, VA 22960
phone/fax 540-832-3473 (evenings)

CG is a service mark of the Board for Certification of
Genealogists®, used under license by board-certified associates who meet
genealogical competency standards prescribed for those programs.





----- Original Message -----
From: Lyle E. Browning <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2001 11:29 PM
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Magnetic North / GIS


> 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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