July 11, 2025
If you have ancestors who settled in the western half of the United States during the 19th century, there’s a good chance that your ancestors received the land directly from the U.S. government.
The records of this transfer are held at the National Archives, but the Bureau of Land Management General Land Office records, usually referred to as the BLM GLO records, are indexed on a free website. There are millions of land patents listed on the website ranging from 1788 through the 1960s. The website can be accessed at https://glorecords.blm.gov/search/default.aspx?searchTabIndex=0&searchByTypeIndex=0.
The BLM website is easy to use. There are several ways to search. If your ancestor’s surname is unusual, you may only need to enter the name into the search field. Otherwise, you can narrow the search by adding a specific state or including a first name.
Not everyone who filed an application completed the process to obtain title to his/her land. Only about forty percent of all applications were finalized. Incomplete applications are not shown on the BLM index. Access to them can be obtained through the National Archives. You will need to have a description of the property to do this.
The patents cover different types of land claims. These include military bounty lands, grants, cash entry sales, credit entry sales, homesteads, mineral or mining claims, and timberland claims.
The Homestead Act of 1862 is the most well-known of the various types of claims. This law allowed anyone to claim 160 acres of land if they met certain requirements. The applicant had to be a U.S. citizen (or someone who had filed a declaration of intent to become a citizen), was at least twenty-one years of age and must not have previously taken up arms against the United States. In addition, the applicant needed to live on his/her claim for five years and have improved the land by building a house and farming at least some of the property.
Homestead claims typically provide the most genealogical information. Once you have obtained a description of the land from the BLM site, you can order a copy of the land entry files from the National Archives. These files can contain all sorts of supporting documents including marriage records and even naturalization certificates and other documents.
There are several helpful articles on obtaining copies of land patents as well as other homestead documents at https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Land_Patent_Search#top-page under the title Land Patent Search. It’s a good place to begin your search for government land grants your family may have received.
Carol Stetser
Researcher
Larimer County Genealogical Society