CONCISE, IN-DEPTH COVERAGE OF THE COMPLEX ISSUES OF EASEMENTS AND THEIR REVERSION The definition, use, defense, and retirement of easements are areas of active work for land surveyors, lawyers, and the holders and buyers of easements, such as utility companies and highway departments. Easements Relating to Land Surveying and Title Examination is the most up-to-date reference that succinctly and incisively covers easements and reversions, written for land surveyors and title examiners. This comprehensive guide covers the various forms of easements, their creation, reversion, and termination. Its numerous case studies offer examples of situations in which easements resulted in litigation and reveal how these cases were decided by the courts. The book also includes coverage of undescribed easements and guidance on how to properly write new easement descriptions. This useful, practical handbook: Defines easements and easement terminology Covers both right-of-way and right-of-way line easements Explains the creation of easements by express grant, reservation or exception, agreement or covenant, implication, estoppel, custom, and more Explores all types of easement termination, including expiration, release, merger of title, abandonment, prescription or adverse possession, and many others Provides thorough descriptions of problem easements, from undescribed and blanket easements to hidden and rolling easements Offers extensive coverage of reversion of easements, including highway-related reversions and rules for locating and defining reversions Presents detailed information for land surveyors and title examiners on how to handle these easement issues

Assembled from local land office records after Texas gained its independence from Mexico, the Character Certificate files in the General Land Office in Austin establish the identities of early immigrants to Texas, fix their date and place of settlement, and shed light on their origins and their families. In using this book, then, the researcher has at his fingertips the unique genealogical records of around 5,000 early Texas settlers!

Base retracement on solid research and historically accurate interpretation Interpreting Land Records is the industry’s most complete guide to researching and understanding the historical records germane to land surveying. Coverage includes boundary retracement and the primary considerations during new boundary establishment, as well as an introduction to historical records and guidance on effective research and interpretation. This new edition includes a new chapter titled “Researching Land Records,” and advice on overcoming common research problems and insight into alternative resources when official records are unavailable. Topical case studies provide helpful, plain-language descriptions of methods, problems, and resolutions, and appendices provide definitions, context, and modern interpretation of historical words and phrases. The text features exhaustive coverage and notes, with hundreds of case law citations annotated with expert insight that gives readers the complete background of the methods and techniques discussed. Boundary retracement entails the recovery of historical documents related to the original boundary, correct interpretation and analysis, and the accurate application of historic survey principles with correlation to conditions on the ground. This builds a legally-sound defense to the location of the boundary, and is crucial element to any project or transaction concerning land. Interpreting Land Records is the pre-eminent reference to help readers: Interpret historical land records, understanding their creation and documentation Become familiar with the various methods of historic surveys Overcome common research issues, including lost or corrupted records Establish boundaries free of vagueness or abstraction, with clear documentation Haphazard retracement leaves a boundary open to dispute and complicates future retracement efforts. Accuracy depends in part on quality research and the accurate interpretation of available documents. Interpreting Land Records provides comprehensive, practical guidance toward retracement based on sound evidence and technique.

Georgia Land Surveying History and Law is the first definitive history and analysis of Georgia’s land system and the laws that govern it. The book’s opening section tells the story of the surveyor’s role in transforming Georgia from a frontier to a bounded, populated, and productive colony and state. Paced by anecdotes of surveyors’ wilderness experiences, the narrative traces the evolution of Georgia’s land subdivision system, beginning with the original, and ultimately impractical, scheme of land granting and rectangular land subdivision under the Trustees of the Georgia Colony. The volume then covers the more flexible but easily abused headright procedure, and the subsequent lottery and succession of systematic, rectangular surveys under which most of the state was laid out and granted in the early nineteenth century. Finally, in lay terms supported by meticulous citation of authority, the volume discusses the legal aspects of land surveying, including the interests that make up land ownership, the transfer of real property, the interpretation of property descriptions, the location of boundaries, riparian and littoral rights, and other topics. The book examines every point concerning boundaries found in any Georgia case or statute. Based solidly on primary sources and the author’s fifteen years of experience in land surveying and title abstracting, Georgia Land Surveying History and Law is an exhaustively researched and scholarly reference that will be useful to surveyors, title attorneys, title abstractors, real estate professionals, geographers, cartographers, historians, and genealogists.

This book explores the history of public land tenure records, which first began in colonial Massachusetts as English settlers and Native Americans tried to resolve differing ideas about rights to land in the seventeenth century. In South Australia, a similar method of state certification of land ownership arose in the nineteenth century, through Torrens system title registration – a process that would be widely adopted in British and American colonies as a particularly effective way of guaranteeing absolute ('fee simple') ownership over indigenous peoples’ land. This book explores the similarities between these two record systems, highlighting how similar settlement patterns and religious beliefs in both places focused attention on recording land tenure, and illustrating how these record systems encouraged new ways of thinking about rights to and on land.