Land Entry Records

The National Archives is the official repository for the records of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) General Land Office (GLO) that document the transfer of public lands from the United States to private ownership. The case files generated by over ten million such individual land transactions, known as land entries, together with the tract books and name indexes used to reach them, are held in the National Archives Building in Washington, DC.

Which states are covered

The National Archives has custody of the land entry case files for the thirty Federal public land states. There are case files for all states in the U.S. except the thirteen original states, Vermont, Kentucky, Tennessee, Maine, West Virginia, Texas and Hawaii. These states were never part of the original public domain.

What a land entry case file contains

Land entry case files can contain a wealth of genealogical and legal information. Depending on the type and period of the land entry, the case file may yield only a few facts already known to the researcher, or it may present new insights about ancestors, family history, title and land use.

Case files for land entries made before the 1840s may contain only the name of the entryman, the land’s location, acreage and price, and the date and place of the land entry. In cases of military bounty-land warrants and private land claims, they may establish a record of U.S. military service or reveal that the claimant settled in a location before it was annexed by the U.S.

Case files for land entries made after about 1840 under the Cash Act (1820), the Preemption acts (1830s to 1840s), the Donation Act (1850), the Homestead Act (1862), the Mineral Acts (1860s to 1870s), the Timber Culture Act (1873), the Desert Land Act (1877) and several military bounty-land warrant acts (1840s to 1850s) generally include more. The records can attest to the entryman’s age, place of birth, citizenship, military service, literacy and economic status, and sometimes include similar information about family members. They also provide evidence of first title, and occasionally of land use, rights-of-way, survey lines, crops and improvements, archeological imprints and conflicting claims.

Such information is not guaranteed to be in every land entry case file. Over 40 separate legislative acts were used by Americans to make a land entry on the public lands, and each act required different information from the entryman. What is available in a case file depends largely on the legal requirements of the act under which the entry was made. Used imaginatively, however, even the smallest case files can establish locations of land ownership or settlement, and dates essential to finding other National Archives records such as census, court, and military service and pension records.

What you must supply to order

Before July 1908 the BLM-GLO kept the case files for all general land entries by state, land office, type of entry (such as credit, cash, homestead, timber and mineral), and final certificate number (sometimes called the file or document number). Large portions of the pre-July 1908 case files are not indexed by name, so each request for a land entry case file dated before July 1908 must include:

• state
• land office
• type of land entry
• final certificate number

After July 1908 the BLM-GLO filed all general land entries, regardless of state or type, in one large series by serial patent number. Each request for a land entry case file dated after July 1908 must include:

• name of entryman
• serial patent number

When ordering a bounty-land warrant case file you must provide:

• the year of the Congressional act authorizing the warrant
• the acreage
• the warrant number

Finding the legal description

To obtain the legal description of the land, the final certificate number or the serial patent number, begin by searching the BLM-GLO records at glorecords.blm.gov. Otherwise, contact the registrar of deeds in the county where the land was located. You may also need to consult family members, personal family papers, and records held by town or city halls, county court houses, state and local archives, and historical societies.

Your research at the National Archives, especially in military pension records and bounty-land applications, may reveal information about land your ancestor acquired. Once you have determined that your ancestor probably acquired land directly from the Federal Government in a public land state, you can request a copy of the land entry case file.

Where to read more

• Land records at the National Archives

Sample images

These show the kind of record this reproduction contains. They are examples only and are not your record.

A cash land entry case file.

Example: A cash land entry case file (PDF)

William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s land entry file. The image is the first page only; the link below it opens the complete file.

The complete 12-page land entry case file of William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody (PDF)