Original land grants: the BLM GLO records, and why Texas is different

The federal records In the thirty "public-land states", the first transfer of land from the United States to a private owner is recorded as a land patent. The Bureau of Land Management's General Land Office records site has the images and indexes, free: https://glorecords.blm.gov. Search by name, or by legal description (township, range, section). The National Archives holds the land entry case files behind each patent, which can include affidavits, receipts and, for homesteads, proof of residence and cultivation. The Texas exception Texas is not a public-land state. When it joined the Union in 1845 it kept its public land, so the federal GLO site has no Texas patents. Original Texas titles, from Spanish and Mexican grants through Republic and state grants, are held by the Texas General Land Office in Austin. Its archives and map collection are searchable at https://www.glo.texas.gov. Texas also does not use the township-and-range survey. Land is described by survey and abstract number, and by metes and bounds. Your county appraisal district usually lists the survey name and abstract number for a parcel, and that is the key to finding the original grant. The method 1. Get the survey name and abstract number from the appraisal district record. 2. Find the abstract in the Texas GLO land grant database. 3. Follow later transfers in the county clerk's deed records. Post here The survey, abstract number and county, and what the file contained.