Absolutely, John.  And too, the same situations are easily found in NC and TN (and likely many more states.  Plus, as mentioned, there are many deed descriptions that have both "courses" and "bounds" as to each line.

I think it also is interesting that the very ancient expression, "Metes and Bounds", reveals NOTHING indicative of any need by those now long in their graves for either angles or distances.  The early owners, as often as not, surely could not apply geometry and had no accurate way to measure distances, yet still they knew full well, as now, where their boundary lines were located.

As any surveyor will tell us, if he/she knows the meeting points of all the corners, and knows none of the angles of the "bounds" - the lines on the perimeter of the tract, no matter how marked or established - he can locate the property on the ground, and equally can determine the acreage by simply measuring the length of those lines and applying ordinary surveying geometry.

Maybe the best indication that old practices remain for centuries is revealed by the fact that I can quickly show you the tree on the NE corner of my property from which my north line extends to the creek west of the land, yet I have NO idea whatever about the courses, angles and distances.


Genealogy without documentation is nothing.
                     Paul Drake JD
                Genealogist & Author
            <www.DrakesBooks.com>


  ----- Original Message -----
  From: JB Garrett
  To: [log in to unmask]
  Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2006 7:47 PM
  Subject: Re: [VA-ROOTS] colonial land grant language


  > Next, early, often quite uneducated landowners could be confident in the location of such as roads, creeks and blazed trees, and yet not completely trust the surveyors or their instruments, especially when those surveyed lines seemed to vary from the described boundaries by which they had purchased the land.

  If you go into most courthouses in Virginia and probably other states you will still find land being bought and sold using metes and bounds descriptions from 100+ years ago with distances in poles with approximations of acreage that can be widely different from what actually exists.  And you also get
  transcription errors where the lawyer/clerk has omitted lines of the description to the point of where you can't figure out where the property lines are supposed to be.

  John Garrett

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