Blog · September 30, 2026
What Record and Measured Mean on a Plat
Record is the bearing or distance taken from an older deed or plat. Measured is what this survey observed. When a sheet prints both, it is comparing its work to the record. Neither number, alone, is a new deed.
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The pair in parentheses
A course may read north 12 degrees 04 minutes east, 200.00 feet, and then in parentheses a slightly different bearing or a distance of 200.12 feet, labeled R and M or record and measured. Conventions differ. Sometimes the record figure is in parentheses and the measured figure is the main call. The legend or the notes have to say which is which. Guessing backward is how people stake the parenthesis. The comparison tells you this surveyor found the line a little different from the paper they were retracing. Small differences are ordinary. A tenth of a foot on a two-hundred-foot line is a different kind of news from a ten-foot miss, which may mean the wrong monument or a blunder in the old call.
What you are allowed to conclude
You may conclude the surveyor reported both. You may not conclude the measured number amends the deed. The deed still says what it says until a new recorded instrument changes it. You also may not conclude the record number is wrong because a wheel and a laser gave you the measured figure in the parenthesis. Your wheel is not this survey. In a retracement, monuments that match the original establishment often control, and the measured distance between them is information. In a new subdivision, the measured and record comparison may be against the parent deed along the outside boundary, while the new lots inside are created by this plat’s own dimensions. Read which lines carry the pair. Interior lot lines on a new plat are often just this plat’s numbers, with no record parenthesis, because there was no older lot line there.
How GIS fits beside the pair
The county parcel map has neither the record call nor the measured call. It has a drawn edge. Matching a GIS measure tool to the measured parenthesis is a coincidence hunt, not a check. Platbookmapper links to that map and does not store R and M values, draw lot lines, or show zip codes. If a title commitment says the survey shows a difference from the record, read the survey’s legend before you panic or before you demand a deed correction. Many differences are reported precisely so nobody pretends the old distance and the new measurement were identical. A correction affidavit is for an error in a document, not for every tenth of a foot a modern instrument sees.
What to do next
- Read the legend to see which figure is record and which is measured.
- Note whether the pair is on a parent boundary or on a new lot line.
- Do not rewrite the deed to the measured figure.
- Treat a large mismatch as a question for the surveyor who signed the sheet.
The mix-up to avoid
Staking the parenthetical number without knowing whether it is record or measured. The parenthesis is only half of a labeled pair. The label is the part that gives it a meaning.
Questions people ask
Why not just use the newer measurement?
Because the deed, the plat, and the monuments have a legal relationship the newer number does not automatically win. A measurement reports. It does not convey. On a retracement, the goal is to follow the original line, not to improve it.
What if only one number is shown?
Then the sheet is not making the comparison on that line, or the comparison is elsewhere in the notes. Do not invent a record figure from the tax map. One number means one number, and the legend still says what the surveyor claims it represents.
Find the county map
Search the county on the Platbookmapper home page. The directory links to the official parcel viewer. It does not draw the lots, and the line on the screen is an assessment map, not a survey.
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.