Current named-feature and property join records

Summary

This is the current geographic bridge between the GLO survey network and the project’s place/property questions. It indexes 1,153 PLSS quarter-quarter units, 697 Michigan DNR parcel records, 3,748 public township parcel summaries, 3,757 current island parcel polygons, and 34 current OSM named, island, and historic-feature records. The records make it possible to move from a historical plat or named feature to a modern survey unit and then ask which deed, patent, tax card, conservation acquisition, or institutional record should be retrieved next. The held GLO patent layer now supplies the federal grantee and legal-description step for 665 source rows; it does not supply later private conveyances or current owners.

Evidence tiers

The graph keeps four claims separate:

1. Transactional title evidence — patents, deeds, tract books, and tax records naming grantors, grantees, dates, and legal descriptions. The project now holds 352 BLM patents normalized to 665 legal-location rows and current public BS&A search summaries. Those summaries are not transactional title evidence; the project does not hold the county deed corpus or GLO tract books.
2. Agency or institutional property statements — for example, a plan saying that an island is state land, a preserve belongs to a conservancy, or a feature is privately owned. These remain source- and date-bounded.
3. Survey and spatial joins — PLSS section/aliquot geometry, DNR parcel polygons, and OSM/GNIS feature intersections. These locate records; they do not prove title.
4. Historical occupancy or sale reporting — newspapers and local histories that name a purchaser, occupant, or property association without supplying a deed. These are valuable leads, not silently upgraded ownership records.

Recommended traversal

For a named feature, follow the feature article or GNIS record to its current coordinates, then to the intersecting PLSS quarter-quarter, current county parcel, and DNR parcel records. Search the ArcGIS/BS&A crosswalk by a known parcel number, current situs address, or source-displayed owner label. Use the parcel/PLSS and parcel/GLO candidate tables to narrow the survey unit and patent rows, then request the county deed record before treating the result as a dated conveyance. Finally, connect a person or company only to the assertion that the source actually documents.

For a historical property notice, start with the named place and event, search the parcel-record legal descriptions for the same township/range/section or subdivision language, and treat a match as a candidate until a deed or tax record confirms it. A shared name such as “Boyles Beach,” “Nomad,” or “Wanty” is not by itself a parcel join.

Current named-feature and property leads

• Barneys Lake: GNIS preserves a naming note for Barney O’Donnell; the 2023 plan says most of the lake is Little Traverse Conservancy land. The next evidence is Conservancy acquisition documentation plus deeds.
• Greenes Lake: GNIS associates the name with “Big Neal” Greene; the plan says most shoreline is DNR land. The next evidence is land acquisition and historical land records.
• Egg Lake: the plan describes private ownership and public access through Central Michigan University. The next evidence is the access agreement and title/parcel records.
• Ojibwa Island: the 2025 report identifies Joe Callian as the private owner in the naming dispute. The claim is preserved in the island article; the next evidence is the legal ownership record and the BGN/GNIS correspondence.
• Petritz Preserve: the preserve is associated with Little Traverse Conservancy and land assembled from Petritz family property. The next evidence is the Conservancy acquisition file and exact boundary instruments.
• Nomad, Point La Par, and the 1960 property notices: these supply named purchasers or property associations in the newspaper corpus, but no parcel identifiers. They are prioritized in Historical propertyholder and ownership research queue.

Limits

BS&A’s owner field may be described only as the owner label displayed on the current assessing/tax search record, with its retrieval date. It is not proof that the person occupied the property, the date ownership began, or the full title chain. A DNR division field is likewise not a complete title history, a current OSM operator tag is not ownership, and a point-in-polygon join is not evidence that a historical place name followed a modern parcel boundary.

See also

• Historical propertyholder and ownership research queue
• BLM General Land Office patent records for the Beaver Island area
• General Land Office survey plats for the Beaver Island archipelago
• Land survey and settlement geography
• Historical toponymy and map change