Years ago I was researching an ancestor who moved from New York
to Iowa in 1838. I was looking at the county courthouse records
for a document revealing his first purchase of the bare Iowa
land. The land he settled had not been previously owned by a
private party. I couldn’t find the record. I later discovered I
couldn’t find it because that document would have been kept by
the federal government, not the county. Knowing how land was
first transferred from the government is critical to finding the
record. Generally, the first time a parcel was transferred, the
land was distributed one of two ways: 1. The State Land States:
These states transferred title directly from the state to the
individual or company without any steps from the federal
government. The State Land States were the 13 original colonies
plus a few extras, namely: Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia,
Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire,
New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode
Island, South Carolina, Tenn