Research in the Land Entry Files of the General Land Office

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the official repository for records of the U.S. General Land Office, a predecessor of the Bureau of Land Management, that document the transfer of public lands from the United States to private ownership.1 The case files generated by over 10 million such individual land transactions, known as land entries, and the tract books and various name indexes used to access them are located in the National Archives Building, Washington, DC