Homestead Act Records
New settlers to the USA may have left a number of records behind
The Homestead Act of 1862 led to millions of people being given large tracts of land, for free. These claims resulted in lots of documentation that you may want to find.
Most typical land records exist as a person purchased (or sold) a piece of land in the United States. As mentioned in an earlier article, land deeds can offer some interesting genealogical information and are worthwhile sources for your research.
But if you have relatives who claimed land under the Homestead Act of 1862, you may be able to find a more detailed and extensive file as part of their record of such a claim.
The Homestead Act (and its subsequent amendments) was enacted to provide land to settlers who came to the Western regions of the United States. The general principle was that anyone over the age of 21 could file a claim for a 160-acre parcel of land, and would receive title for that land after 5 years providing he/she built a house on the land, lived there for that time period and raised crop (or otherwise improved the parcel).
Until it was revoked in 1976, many millions of settlers gained their homestead farms through this method. And many millions of files were created to document these claims.
If you are able to find the file for your homesteading relative, it will contain their original homestead application, personal testimony about the homestead, witness statements from 2 people, naturalization papers (if the claimant was an immigrant) and any military papers (if the claimant served previously in the army).
You can find family names, birth dates, birth locations, occupations, naturalization details, military references, as well as personal details about what was raised on the homestead and the equipment/livestock owned by your ancestor.
These files are filled with genealogical facts, but also a treasure trove of narrative and personal information that can give you a good look at the life of your family members. The personal testimony section of the file will be of the most interest, in this respect. It should describe the development of the farm, the regular routines, improvements, failures and successes.
Homestead records are stored at the National Archives in Washington, DC. Some of the files have been microfilmed and indexed, but you will still likely need to access the originals at this time.
To acquire a copy of your ancestor's file, you first need to get the full legal description of the land in question. It's not enough to know the family name, and/or town and county. You may need to visit the local court house in order to find the location and description of the homestead in question.
These records are currently kept in Record Group 49 (Records of the Bureau of Land Management). You will have to check with the Archives website directly to find out how to order homestead records.
And as a point of interest, the Archives have a sample 24-page homestead file available for viewing, belonging to the well-known settler Charles Ingalls (father of Little House on the Prairie author, Laura Ingalls Wilder)
