Frederick County, Maryland Land Records Abstracts, 1788-1792, Liber WR8 Through WR10

This volume includes three libers done under the supervision of William Ritchie, Clerk of Frederick County Court, and labeled WR8 through WR10, covering 1788 to 1792. There continues to be records of confiscated British property sales, including the Frederick Town lots and the ground rents sold. Other towns continued to be developed and lots sold, the newest, "Berlin" - today Brunswick, platted in 1787 by Leonard Smith, who in 1774, had platted "New Town" on Eleanor Medley's land, today called Jefferson. Also in this volume are the continuing sales of town lots for Emmitsburg, Creagerstown, Middletown, Westminster, and Liberty Town: the whole town was sold to a new proprietor, Richard Coale. Frederick Town had Additional Lots sold in adjoining Bentztown, and also look to Dulaney's Lot and Tasker's Chance for further developments in Frederick. Check the index under town names for churches and other places named within towns.

Although it is becoming increasingly easy to access these records online through the Maryland State Archives, the value that abstracts offer in locating records through their every-name indexing, cannot be matched with the indexes available online, which only list the principals in an indenture. The current indexes were prepared by the circuit clerks to identify property owners, and to assist the clerks in land title searches and often omitted other items. Users of these volumes understand much more is involved in family research. Deeds can be particularly useful in identifying family relationships, and relationships to slave families.

Abstracts are best used as brief guides and indexes to original records, and to find people mentioned in deeds who would otherwise be lost in the records. This series of abstracts focuses on the names of parties in the deeds. This volume contains three indices to aid the researcher: an index to full-names, which includes an occupation section (occupations will sometimes help distinguish a man); an index to place names; and an index to land tract names. The name index includes slaves and free, mulattos and Negroes, listed under "Negro" to make identification easier for researchers. The name index also includes town lots.



2021, 8½x11, paper, index, 270 pp