Lineage of Land: Tracing Property Without Recorded Deeds

2023 Joy Reisinger Memorial Lecture Series

This case study traces a piece of property for two hundred years, from the Native Americans to the Dutch, to the English, and through fourteen members of the Hicks family over five generations. Transfer of title occurs through various instruments, including patents, unrecorded deeds, inheritance, escheatment, private laws, entails, deeds of lease and release, life estates, and coverture. Tracing the lineage of the property elucidates family relationships that were otherwise forgotten.

This class is presented live at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City as part of the Joy Reisinger Memorial Lecture Series and is being broadcasted by Legacy Family Tree Webinars.

Presenter: Shannon Green, CG

Shannon Green, CG, is a genealogy researcher, writer, and educator. She started looking into her ancestry in 2010 and has been debunking family lore, overturning family traditions, and wrecking the idealized version of her family history ever since. Her research is primarily focused on extending her female lines. She earned the Certified Genealogist credential in 2017 and renewed her credential in 2022. Shannon serves as a trustee for the Board for Certification of Genealogists and as a trustee for the BCG Education Fund and is a former instructor for Boston University’s Genealogy Principles course. Her articles have been published in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, the NYG&B Record, and the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, and the National Genealogical Society Magazine, among others. She has an undergraduate degree from Duke University and an MBA from Vanderbilt University. Shannon lives in Greenwood Village, Colorado with her husband and three children.