Glossary

Abstract of title

A bound history of a piece of land: every recorded deed, will, lien and release, from the original grant to the present, usually made by a title company.

Older families often still have one in a drawer. It is the quickest way to trace who held a tract.

Used in: Her name on the map

Annexation

Texas joining the United States. Congress voted for it in early 1845, and Texas became a state on 29 December 1845.

Used in: Her name on the map

Sources: Handbook of Texas: Annexation

Deputy surveyor

A surveyor working under the district surveyor who ran the lines of a survey on the ground and wrote its field notes.

Used in: Her name on the map

Sources: Handbook of Texas: Surveying

District surveyor

The official surveyor for a land district, which could take in several counties. He recorded the surveys made in it and sent them on to the Land Office.

Used in: Her name on the map

Sources: Handbook of Texas: Surveying

General Land Office

The Texas state office in Austin, set up in 1836, that keeps the record of every grant of public land and issued the patents.

Its files on each survey (certificates, field notes, sketches and patents) are still kept and can be read online.

Used in: Her name on the map

Sources: Handbook of Texas: General Land Office

Grantee

The person a land grant was made to, whose name the survey carries.

Used in: Her name on the map

Sources: Handbook of Texas: Land Grants

Greenback Party

A farmers' and workers' party of the 1870s and 1880s that wanted more paper money in circulation to ease debts and low crop prices.

In 1880 it ran James B. Weaver for president and B. J. Chambers of Texas for vice president.

Used in: Her name on the map

Sources: Handbook of Texas: Greenback Party; Handbook of Texas: Chambers, Barzillai J.

Headright

Land the Republic of Texas granted to people for having settled here. Heads of families living in Texas on 4 March 1836 got a league and a labor; single men got a third of a league. The 1836 constitution shut out people of African descent and American Indians.

A court or county board issued a certificate for the claim, and the certificate could be laid down on any unclaimed land, in pieces if the holder chose.

Used in: Her name on the map

Sources: Handbook of Texas: Land Grants

Labor

A Spanish land measure, about 177 acres. Under Mexico it was the farming land in a settler's grant, beside the league for grazing.

Here it means the land measure, not work.

Used in: Her name on the map

Sources: Handbook of Texas: Land Grants

League

A Spanish land measure, about 4,428 acres. Under Mexico it was the grazing land in a settler's grant.

A league and a labor together came to about 4,605 acres.

Used in: Her name on the map

Sources: Handbook of Texas: Land Grants

Manifest destiny

The belief, common in the 1840s, that the United States was meant by Providence to spread across the continent.

The phrase first appeared in print in 1845, in an essay calling for the annexation of Texas.

Used in: Her name on the map

Sources: "Annexation," United States Magazine and Democratic Review 17 (July–August 1845): 5

Patent

The state's final grant of title to a survey, signed in Austin. Until a survey was patented the land still belonged to the state.

The patent is the first link in the chain of title for most land in the county.

Used in: Her name on the map

Sources: Handbook of Texas: Land Grants

Republic of Texas

The independent country Texas was from 1836, when it broke from Mexico, until it joined the United States at the end of 1845.

Used in: Her name on the map

Sources: Handbook of Texas: Republic of Texas

Survey

A numbered tract laid out on the ground from one land grant and named for the person it was granted to.

Nearly every deed in Navarro County still describes land as out of a named survey, by its abstract number.

Used in: Her name on the map

Sources: Handbook of Texas: Surveying