What a deed is
A deed is a legal document that transfers an interest in land from one party to another. The person giving up the interest is the grantor, and the person receiving it is the grantee. For a historian, a deed is a dated, signed record that a particular piece of land changed hands, often with a description of its boundaries.
Deeds were generally copied into official record books so the transfer would be public. That recording is what makes it possible to follow a lot through time, even when the people involved are long gone.
What deed records usually contain
Details vary by period, but a typical deed includes:
- the names of the grantor and grantee, and sometimes their places of residence and occupations;
- the date of the document and the date it was recorded;
- a description of the land, often by boundaries, adjoining owners, or lot numbers on a filed plan;
- a stated price or consideration, though early documents sometimes list a nominal sum;
- references to earlier deeds, restrictions or rights of way;
- the signatures of the parties and witnesses.
Older descriptions can be hard to read. They may use “metes and bounds”, describing a boundary by directions and distances from a starting point, with landmarks such as a creek, a road or a neighbor’s fence. Lot-and-block descriptions, tied to a recorded plan, became more common as land was subdivided.
Where the records are kept
In the United States, land records are usually held at the county level. In New Jersey, that generally means the county office responsible for recording deeds, and older volumes may have been transferred to a county or state archive. Some indexes and images have been digitized, though coverage differs by county and period. The location, access rules and fees change, so check the current website or contact the office before visiting.
Since county boundaries moved in the past, an early deed for land that is now in one county may be found in the records of an earlier one. The formation of new counties could place pre-split records in a different place from later ones, which is worth keeping in mind for places whose county changed over time; the story of county formation explains why.
Following a chain of title
The central technique is the chain of title: starting with the present owner and working back, each deed names the previous owner and often cites the earlier deed by book and page. By repeating that step, you build a sequence of owners.
A common routine is:
- Identify the current parcel, using a street address or lot and block number.
- Find the most recent deed and note the grantor and the book and page cited.
- Look up that earlier deed. Record the grantor, grantee, date and description.
- Repeat until you reach an early owner, a subdivision, or a grant from a larger landholder.
- Check the other direction with indexes where you suspect a gap.
Where a deed does not cite its predecessor, grantor-grantee indexes help. These are alphabetical lists by name, with separate volumes for people selling and people buying, that point to the book and page for each recorded document. Names appear as written at the time, so try variant spellings.
Large landholdings and subdivision
Urban lots often began as part of a larger tract. In the Camden area, early land was held in large parcels along the river, and the Cooper family and other early landholders divided and sold land over generations. Tracing one city lot may lead back to such a tract and then to a subdivision plan that created streets and numbered lots. Early surveys and maps, such as those discussed under colonial maps, can help you understand the original layout before the plan was filed.
Related property records
Deeds are only part of the picture. Other records can fill in what a deed leaves out:
- Mortgages and their discharges show borrowing against a property and when a debt was cleared.
- Wills and probate files show land passing by inheritance, which does not always produce a deed.
- Tax records and assessments show who was taxed on a parcel, and sometimes building values.
- Subdivision plans and surveys show lot sizes and streets as laid out.
- Court records may show sales forced by unpaid debts or taxes.
- Fire insurance maps and atlases show what stood on the land, which deeds do not.
Linking a lot to a building requires combining sources. A deed may describe vacant land even if a house was already there, and a stated owner may not be the occupant. Use city directories or census entries to see who lived at an address, because ownership and occupancy are different things.
What deeds cannot tell you
- Price may mislead. Recorded amounts could be nominal, bundled with other property, or omitted. Do not treat them as market values without corroboration.
- Not every transfer was recorded. Informal arrangements and some inheritances may be missing from the deed books.
- Descriptions can be vague or inaccurate. Boundaries based on landmarks that no longer exist are hard to place on a modern map.
- A deed says little about people. It names parties but rarely their motives, circumstances or the buildings and activities on the site.
- Restrictions can matter. Some deeds included conditions on use or on who could buy. Such clauses are part of the historical record of housing practices, and the longer story of redlining history gives context for why they exist, but each document must be read on its own terms.
Handling modern records
Recent deeds identify living private owners. Public record does not mean you should publish personal details without thought. For recent properties, summarize ownership patterns rather than naming individuals, unless the information is clearly a matter of public interest. Property records are also not legal advice or a substitute for a title search, which is a specialist task; this article is a general explanation for historical research only.
Recording what you find
For each deed, note the grantor, grantee, date signed, date recorded, book and page, a short summary of the description, and the consideration as stated. Quote any unusual wording exactly. Record what you could not find as well, because a gap in the chain is itself a research finding that may point to another record type.