Bureau of Land Management

This past week I received 2 CD's in the mail. Now when you order BLM (Bureau of Land Management) Records you have a choice: 1) Receive the information in paper form or 2) Receive the information on a CD. The National Archives who has the BLM records charges $40.00 per order no matter how many pages there are in the record. The 2 records I ordered are as follows

1. Richard Teed Huyck purchasing land in Ohio. His file was for a cash purchase of 80 acres of land and the record only had 4 pages. This is the smallest I have yet to see. It just Lists his intention, his receipt and the front and back of the folder it was in. Not much for $40.00.
2. Erland Christofferson, my emergent  2great grandfather, purchasing land in North Dakota. His file was for a Timber Culture for 160 acres. In the file there were pages telling how many acres he plowed, how many acres he planted in trees and what kind of trees. Also it contained information about his citizenship and when he came over. I had always assume (I know never assume anything, but you have to start somewhere) that he came through a US port, but he did not he came through Quebec Canada. I never really worried about his ship passenger record to much since I had enough information to find him and his family in Norway, but now I Know where to look for this elusive record. Quite a bit for $40.00.

As I said you never know what you will find in BLM Records.

Reuben Miner Land Records

Well I took the plunge and ordered Reuben Miner's land entry case file. I had located the deed papers on the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) site and it diected me to the National Archives site. If I understand right, I should get Reuben's application records and the records that tell what he did to improve the land. It's a leap of faith that will take up to 2 months to see what happens. If they find the records then it will cost $40.00, if they don't find anything the search is free. As I was looking at the form I couldn't tell exactly what was going to be included in the search. There was a place to put extra information. I put down that I wanted the land entry records, that I already had the deed from the BLM website. We'll see if I understood the information right.