The Land Archive

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Between 1865 and the early 1900s, thousands of formerly enslaved Americans did something extraordinary — they acquired land. Through land patents, they became first-time landowners in a country that had previously considered them property. 

Most of that land is gone now. Some was sold. Much of it wasn't. 

The Land Archive exists to find the record of what was theirs – the patents, the deeds, the parcel numbers, the names signed with an X — and return that documentation to the families who never knew it existed. 

Your ancestor owned the land. We find the proof.