Blog · September 30, 2026
What Is a Bearing Tree?
A bearing tree is a tree marked and described as an accessory to a corner. The notes give species, diameter, bearing, and distance from the corner to the tree. The tree is evidence. The corner is the point the notes measured from.
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How the old notes describe it
General Land Office and later survey notes often witness a corner to trees. A call may name a white oak, give a diameter in inches, and then a bearing and a distance in links or feet from the corner to the tree. The surveyor blazed or scribed the side facing the corner. That tree is a bearing tree, sometimes called a witness tree. The species and size help the next surveyor decide whether a stump or a scar is the same tree. The bearing and distance are the tie. You do not start the property line at the tree unless the deed separately calls for the tree as the corner itself.
What remains when the tree is gone
A stump, a root collar, or a fallen trunk with old scribing can still be the accessory the notes described. Identifying it is skilled work. Rot, fire, and a century of growth change diameters, and more than one oak may stand in the same quarter. The recorded distance is from the corner to the tree as it stood when the notes were written, usually to the blaze or to the center, depending on the instructions used for that survey. Guessing with a phone compass will not match a bearing taken to the minute. Leave the stump in place. Digging it out destroys the accessory.
Reading them beside a modern plat
A new subdivision plat seldom creates bearing trees. You will meet them on older sectional surveys, on patents, and on retracement plats that recovered an original accessory. The county tax map does not show blazes or species. If the deed is a lot-and-block description, the subdivision plat controls the lot, and a bearing tree from the parent section corner is background for the section line, not a new lot corner. When a retracement plat says an original bearing tree was found, read the tie it reports, and let a surveyor judge whether that tree still fixes the corner.
What to do next
- Copy species, diameter, bearing, and distance as a set.
- Keep the corner and the tree as two points.
- Note whether the distance is in links or in feet before you convert.
- Do not cut or dig a marked tree. A surveyor should judge the accessory.
The mix-up to avoid
People start the boundary at the big oak because the deed mentioned a tree. Unless the tree is the corner monument, it is a witness off to the side, and the corner sits at the recorded offset.
Questions people ask
Is a line tree the same as a bearing tree?
No. A bearing tree witnesses a corner and stands off the corner. A line tree stands on the boundary between corners and was marked because the line passed through it. The notes use different wording, so read which role that tree was given.
Can I use a phone compass on the bearing in the notes?
You can get a rough sense of direction under open sky. A phone compass is not adjusted the way a survey compass was, and it will not hold a bearing to the minute. It is not a survey, and it will not prove which tree is the witness.
Find the county map
The county GIS map is the practical place to start. Find it from the Platbookmapper directory, then treat the recorded plat and deed as the documents behind the picture.
Not a survey. County GIS and tax parcel maps are assessment and planning layers. They are not a substitute for a recorded plat, deed, or licensed survey.