Parcel maps, property search, and county GIS guides

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• Sep 30, 2026 What Is Grid Distance versus Ground Distance? Grid distance is the distance on the map projection between two coordinates. Ground distance is the horizontal distance on the ground. A scale factor relates them. On a single lot the gap is often tiny. On a long line, mixing them moves the end point.
• Sep 30, 2026 What NAD27 and NAD83 Mean on a Plat NAD27 and NAD83 are different geodetic datums, different reference frames for latitude and for state plane coordinates. The same numbers in the wrong datum can miss by tens of feet. A plat has to name the datum. A parcel screenshot will not.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is a Reception Number? A reception number is a sequential number a recorder assigns when a document is accepted for recording. It is the handle for that document in counties that use reception numbers instead of, or in addition to, book and page. It is not a parcel id.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is an Instrument Number? An instrument number is the recorder’s identifier for one filed document, such as a deed, an easement, or a plat. Cite it with the county. It locates the paper. It does not locate the corners by itself.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is an Entry Number in the Index? An entry number is the index line a clerk assigned when a document was entered in the daily or grantor index. It helps you find the book and page or the image. It is an index address, not a legal description and not a parcel number.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is a Tract Index? A tract index lists recorded documents by the land they affect, instead of only by the parties’ names. You search the section, the lot and block, or the subdivision. It is a finding aid. It is not the plat and not the tax map.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is an Affidavit of Correction? An affidavit of correction is a recorded statement that fixes a clerical or drafting error on a plat or deed, such as a wrong distance or a misspelled name. It is not a replat. It should not move lot lines that were intentionally drawn.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is a Record of Survey? A record of survey is a filed map of a survey that shows what the surveyor found and did, often a retracement of existing lines rather than a new subdivision. It informs. In most cases it does not, by itself, convey land or create lots.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is a Certified Survey Map? A certified survey map, the CSM used in Wisconsin and similarly named maps in a few other places, is a recorded survey map that can divide land under that state’s rules. It is a real recorded map. It is not a nickname for every survey sketch, and it is not the county tax map.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is a Corner Record? A corner record is a filed form or map in which a surveyor reports the condition of a public-land or other land corner and any accessories or new monument. It documents a corner. It does not subdivide land and it does not replace the plat of a lot.
• Sep 30, 2026 How to Read a Surveyor’s Seal A surveyor’s seal is the stamped or electronic mark of the licensed professional who takes responsibility for the survey. You read the name, the license number, the state, and whether the seal is on the final sheet. A seal is not a recording stamp and not a guarantee of title.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is an Offer of Dedication? An offer of dedication is the owner’s proposal, usually on a plat, to give streets or easements to the public. The offer is not the same thing as the public agency accepting that offer. Until acceptance, the road may look public on the plat and still be private in law.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Acceptance of a Dedication Means Acceptance is the public body’s act of taking a dedicated street or easement. It may be a signature on the plat, an ordinance, or, in some places, public use that the law treats as acceptance. Until you find that act, the dedication clause is only half the story.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is a Statutory Dedication? A statutory dedication is a dedication that follows a statute’s required form, usually a plat with a prescribed certificate, so that recording and approval have the effect the statute gives them. It is different from a common-law dedication built from an offer and from public use.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is a Reserve Strip? A reserve strip is a thin strip of land the subdivider keeps at the edge of a plat, often to control who can extend the street or tap the utilities. It is a deliberate barrier. It is not an accident of drafting, and it is not a gore you may absorb.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is a Spite Strip? A spite strip is a narrow parcel retained so a neighbor cannot reach a road, a utility, or their own back land without crossing land someone else kept. The name describes the motive. The legal effect comes from the deed that held the strip back, not from the nickname.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Title to a Vacated Alley Means When an alley is vacated, the public right ends by a recorded vacation, and title to the strip is settled by the vacation statute and the original dedication. Often each abutting owner takes to the center. That is a common outcome, not a guess you should stake before you read the vacation.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is a Private Street Tract? A private street tract is a parcel on the plat that exists to be the street, owned by an association, the abutting owners, or a developer, and not dedicated as a public road. The lots may front on it. The public may have no duty to maintain it.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is a Dominant Estate? The dominant estate is the parcel that benefits from an appurtenant easement. It is the land the easement serves. The servient estate is the land the easement crosses. The labels stay with the parcels, not with whoever is angry this year.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is a Servient Estate? The servient estate is the parcel burdened by an easement. The easement holder uses that strip for the stated purpose. The servient owner keeps the rest of the rights in the land, including uses that do not interfere with the easement.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is an Appurtenant Easement? An appurtenant easement is attached to a parcel of land and benefits that parcel. It is meant to transfer automatically when the parcel is sold. It needs a dominant estate and a servient estate. A personal permission to cross is not appurtenant.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is an Easement in Gross? An easement in gross benefits a person or an organization, not a neighboring parcel. There is no dominant estate. Utility easements are the common example. The right does not travel with whichever house happens to be next door unless the document says it does.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is a Floating Easement? A floating easement grants a right, often a way of ingress, without fixing the route on the ground. It floats until it is located by agreement, by use, or by a later document. It is not a right to wander the whole tract forever if a route has already been fixed.
• Sep 30, 2026 What Is a Centerline Strip Easement? A centerline strip easement describes a line, then says the easement is a stated width on each side, or a full width centered on that line. The centerline is not the edge. Half the width on each side is the usual reading when the deed says centered.