Blog · September 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.
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Searching by the land
A grantor index answers who signed. A tract index answers what has been recorded against this piece of land. The tract may be a section, a quarter section, a government lot, a subdivision block, or a town lot, depending on how that county built the index. If you search the wrong tract, you will miss a plat or you will read someone else’s easements. Subdivisions are often indexed by the subdivision name. A misspelled name or a later replat name hides the sheet. Rural land is often indexed by section, township, and range. A metes-and-bounds tract that was never given a section call may be indexed under the parent tract, which means you need the parent description before the index helps.
What an entry in it looks like
Each line is still a pointer: date, parties, document type, and a recording number or book and page. The index may say easement, plat, affidavit, or deed, with a short land note. The line is not the easement’s width and not the plat’s curve table. You pull every line that touches your tract and then read the documents. A release later in the index may cancel an easement earlier in it. Stopping at the first hit freezes the story in the wrong decade. County GIS sometimes links a parcel to a subset of documents the assessor cared about, such as the deed of the current owner. That subset is not a tract index. Platbookmapper links to the GIS, not to the recorder’s tract books.
Limits you should expect
Not every county has a tract index. Some have one only for city lots. Some have a geographic index that is incomplete before a certain year. A tract index does not guarantee title, and it can omit a document that was mis-indexed. Name indexes remain a backstop. None of this is fieldwork. You do not confirm a tract index entry by pacing the lot with a phone. If the index shows two plats for the same lots, you read both and see which one vacated or amended the other. The later recording is not automatically the one the deed cited. The deed may still cite the first plat, and a replat may or may not have replaced every lot.
What to do next
- Identify how that county defines a tract, such as section or subdivision.
- Read the index through the present, not just the year of your deed.
- Pull the documents the lines point to.
- Use the name index as a check where tract indexing is incomplete.
The mix-up to avoid
Treating the tract index as a map. It is a list. The map is the plat it points to. Sketching from index abbreviations skips the only drawing that has the bearings.
Questions people ask
Is a tract index the same as a tax map?
No. The tax map shows assessment parcels. The tract index lists recorded instruments by land description. They can disagree about what the parcel is, and the recorded instrument wins the description question while the assessor still taxes whatever the roll says.
Does a tract index show unrecorded claims?
No. It shows what was recorded in that office. A handshake easement, a prescriptive claim, or an unrecorded survey may exist and still have no line in the index. Title insurance and a survey look for those in other ways.
Find the county map
Open Platbookmapper and pick the county that taxes the land. Use that viewer to get the parcel id, then match it to the recorded plat if you need the easements and lot numbers.
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.