Old legal and record term 1785-1900s
What does section, township, and range mean in old land records?
A legal description by section, township, and range locates land on the American rectangular survey grid: the township grid squares, the range columns, and the numbered square-mile sections inside them. The same coordinates work across patents, deeds, and plat maps, so one description lets you watch a family farm change hands for a century. You will meet it in land grants and deeds, mostly 1785-1900s.
Where it appears: land grants, deeds.
Hit a term like this in a record you are working on? AncestorIQ reads the record and explains terms like this in context. See how Deep Research works. Stuck on the ancestor as well as the wording? Start with how to work a genealogy brick wall.
Related terms
Browse the full genealogy records glossary for more occupations, causes of death, and legal terms.
FAQs
Where will I see section, township, and range in the records?+
Mostly in land grants and deeds, 1785-1900s. Clerks abbreviated freely and spelling wandered, so expect variant wordings around it.
Do these old terms still matter for family history?+
Yes, a single word can settle a relationship. Relict names a widow, et ux hides an unnamed wife, natural son points at a parent. The words are dry, but what they encode about a family is not.
Where do these definitions come from?+
They are drawn from period dictionaries, government archive glossaries, and standard genealogy references, cross-checked against each other; provenance is documented with the dataset. Inside AncestorIQ, Deep Research reads the record itself and explains terms like this in context, against your ancestor's own document.
Stop translating old records by hand.
AncestorIQ reads the record and explains terms like this in context: the occupation column, the cause on the certificate, the clause in the will. Add one ancestor and let Deep Research do the reading.
No credit card needed. Your tree stays yours.
