Florida Land Records
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The state archives holds a vast body of records created about 1820-22 for the use of the federal government in affirming or denying earlier Spanish grants of land. In many cases these are the only surviving references to some of the pre-territorial residents of the area. The indexed documents are filed by claimant, and the amount of information they contain varies greatly, but the affidavits often tell when an individual arrived in Florida and how many were in his family, including names and ages. The acreage granted often depended on the number of "heads" in the family.
The original fragile records, largely in Spanish, are extant, but the WPA made a five-volume transcript, Spanish Land Grants in Florida, which includes Spanish Grants, British Grants and Private Land Claims, is available at the Flordia State Archives and in a number of libraries, as well as in an inexpensive microfiche edition from the archives.
- In 1842, during the Second Seminole War, the federal government granted lands south of the line dividing Townships Nine and Ten South (a line running east and west about three miles north of Palatka) to individuals who agreed to claim, populate, and hold-by force of arms, if necessary-some of the undeveloped lands of East Florida. More than 1,000 persons responded, cleared the minimum five acres of their 160-acre grant, and lived on the property for the required five years. The records give the date an individual arrived in the territory, marital status, location of the grant holding, and the like.
Florida Historical Records - Databases include Florida Court, Land, Wills & Financial Records; Florida Birth, Marriage & Death Records; Florida Voter Lists & Census Records; Florida Immigration & Emigration Records; Florida Obituary Records; Florida Military Records; Florida Family Tree Records; Florida Pictures; Florida Stories, Memories & Histories; Florida Directories & Member Lists and much more....
- The Land Ordinance of 1785 decreed a land-survey system known as the rectangular system of survey, and Florida was the first state, and remains the only state on the Eastern Seaboard, to be surveyed in orderly squares rather than under the old English system of "metes and bounds" utilized in the thirteen original "state-land" states. The original surveyors' field notes and plats have been transferred to the state archives, along with the original tract books and records of all grants of land from the state to the initial grantee, whether by purchase or otherwise. A fascinating and valuable resource, the notes and other files depict for the careful researcher the topography, settlements, and even the houses of the early territorial period and beyond. Preliminary Inventory of the Land-Entry Papers of the General Land Office, at the National Archives, lists Florida records beginning in 1825.
- The homestead applications filed by Florida settlers, between 1881-1905, have been transferred to the Florida State Archives. Information contained includes name of applicant, place of residence at time of application, tract description, and number of acres granted. There is a surname index. Other homestead records included in this Record Group 598 include tax receipts required to prove that claimants were paying taxes on their claims, unindexed miscellaneous and legal records concerning homesteads, and correspondence of the State Land Office, 1858-1913.
- Deeds after the first grants are recorded generally through the clerk of the courts in the county seat
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