If you know the land owner's name, use the Index of Owners in the back of each book. Simply find the land owner's name and the T-R-S (Township-Range-Section) where their land is located. The key in the index will tell you what page in the maps to refer to. On that page you will find the owner's parcel of land within the Section number indicated in the index.

If you don't know the land owner's name, refer to the county map located near the front of each book. Narrow down your search by referring to the pages indicated near where you would like to search. Once you turn to those pages, you can find the land owners within that Township and Range.

Township-Range-Section - All land is broken down into areas known as Townships. The Township lines run horizontally across a map and have a distinction of either North or South. Townships are then intersected with Ranges, with the lines running vertically, giving the distinction of either East or West. Where a Township and Range intersects is called, either Township X and Range X, or Locator X. Within each T-R or Locator, the land is further broken down into 36 sections. In our plat books, a T-R is divided onto 4 pages. This allows for larger scale maps. Some of our competitors use only one page for an entire T-R and only label owner names in parcels of 20 acres or more. Not only are our maps easier to read, they provide you with more information regarding land ownership of the smaller parcels.

Locator - The T-R-S grid is a way to distinguish areas within a county. You would need to know the T-R-S numbers to locate a particular piece of land. Some counties also use Locator numbers. See the diagram above. Notice the large numbers in the middle of each T-R. This is the Locator number. It is simply another name for the same area of a county. Example - In the diagram above, Township 6N Range 25 E is also known as Locator 7.