INTRODUCTION

When the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), was established by Congress in 1946 it inherited the functions and  land records of the General Land Office which had been created in 1812.  The patents (deeds) listed on this site were issued by the United States in the State of California between 1856 and 1995. The information available here was obtained under the Fredom of Information Act in 1997. Obviously this is not a BLM web site, so this data is not authoritative. Only the official records obtained directly from the BLM are the real deal.

Information available on this site includes patent location (meridian, township, range, section), document identification number, case number, case type (authority),  date and patentee name.  A few deeds contained as many as 25 individuals on the patent document.  However, a vast majority of the documents contained seven or fewer names, so seven was arbitrarily chosen as the maximum number of persons listed. 

HOW TO RESEARCH FOR PATENTS ON THIS SITE

If you are looking for a particular surname, start your search here.  Find the county then go to the link to that county.  In order to keep file sizes manageable (in the days of dial-up internet!) several counties were split into pieces.  You will have to use your browser's search capability to look through each part of the county data.  In addition to the name and county, the case file number is listed.  Therefore if an individual has multiple patents in a county, each one is listed.

Data is organized within each file geographically, by meridian, township, range and section.  If a section is split by a county line, it will only be found in one county. Some parcels of land are mis-reported in the wrong county because of this. If you know the person you are looking for had a homestead in one county, and you do not find him there, check the adjacent county.

BLM DOCUMENTS ON THE WEB

Much has changed since I obtained these records 1997! Now you can search these records live. Federal land title records issued between 1820 and the present, including Federal land patent documents, survey plats, master title plats, and more are available from BLM's General land Office Records website.

The Bureau of Land Management's LR2000 system provides reports on BLM land and mineral use authorizations for oil, gas, and geothermal leasing, rights-of-ways, coal and other mineral development, land and mineral title, mining claims, withdrawals, classifications, and more on federal lands or on federal mineral estate.

I would recommend that you go to the BLM, California mapping and information webpage for a more through list of available information.

More Resources

While BLM has been referred to as "the Nation's record keeper" it is the National Archives that actually keeps the files. Order copies of the actual Patent application files from the National Archives and Records Adminstration. I have seen some amazing information come from these files.

My March 17, 2015 presentation to the Kern Genealogical Society.