Set: Warrant, Patent, and Tract Name Indexes (pdf downloads)

This is a combination of the Warrant Registers for each county (and the Penn period before 1733); the Patent Register Indexes for the colony and state; and Tract Name Indexes for the colony and state. These pdf files were formerly available exclusively from Ancestor Tracks as a set of three CDs.  They are official Pennsylvania records we obtained from the Pennsylvania State Archives and this set includes:  all 70 Warrant Registers showing the original landowners and their transactions; all 10 Patent Register Indexes covering every Patent Volume in the Archives; and all 5 Tract Name Indexes showing names given to each tract by each patentee in every county in the colony or state.  Every inch of land was originally owned by the Proprietors of Pennsylvania, William Penn or his sons before Independence, and was conveyed piece-by-piece over time to individuals. The same process was used after the Revolutionary War created the state of Pennsylvania.  After a tract was in the hands of a person, all subsequent sales of the land were recorded as deeds in the county as it existed at that time or through wills recorded in county courthouses. These Warrant, Patent, and Tract Name Registers cover land transferred by the colonial or state government to the very first individuals (warrantees and patentees) to own it staring in the 1680s and continuing into the 1950s.