About the historic deeds

What is here

22,729 deeds and other recorded documents of Orange County, North Carolina: 2,782 entries in the colonial Register of Orange, recovered from the county’s court records, and every abstract of Deed Books 1 to 42, from the county’s founding in 1752 to the 1870s. Most are deeds of land; others are bills of sale (including sales of enslaved people), deeds of trust, mortgages, bonds, powers of attorney and marriage settlements.

Where the abstracts come from

Mark Chilton read the county’s deed books and published an abstract of each deed on his blogs Orange County NC Deed Books and Wandering through the NC Piedmont. Each deed page gives our own record of the deed: its kind, parties, date, land (tract by tract where there are several), waterways, neighbors, roads and landmarks, and earlier title, drawn from the abstract, with the title and land-grant references from his posts. The page then points to his abstract in his post. Where the abstract leaves a fact out or cannot be read with confidence, the record says “Unknown” or adds a reading note. Each page adds the deed-book citation, a link to the page image at the Register of Deeds, and links to related records in Orange County Indexed. Deed Books 1 to 40 are also on State Archives microfilm in the Wall Local History Collection at the Orange County Public Library, two books to a reel; each deed page names its reel.

Our records also make two indexes: streams, each with the deeds that name it, and neighbors, the adjoining owners by surname.

Keep in mind

• An abstract is a summary. It gives the parties, date, property and neighbors, not the full wording of the deed. Check the deed image before relying on a detail.
• On pages that hold more than one deed, the abstracts sometimes give a deed the parties of its neighbor. A comparison with UNC Greensboro’s People Not Property catalog found this on about fifty pages, and every page checked against the deed images bore the catalog out. Those pages carry a note.
• Deed types and the subjects mentioned are assigned automatically from each abstract’s text and may be incorrect. A deed listed as mentioning a church may only use a church as a boundary.
• Names are as the abstracts give them. Two deeds naming a John Thompson may name two different men.
• Dates are as written; doubtful ones carry a note and are left out of year searches.
• The abstracts quote the terms of their time, including for enslaved people. Our records do not repeat their racial labels.

For the people named in these deeds as enslaved, see Enslaved people in Orange County records, which lists every person by name with ages and family ties.

To report a misreading, write to us. Search the deeds →