Launch of indexing project approaches

Today we introduced our new indexing project to a group of registry employees. Commencing next week, we will begin indexing documents recorded prior to 1976 in reverse chronological order. While most of today’s discussion dealt with technical matters related to our computers and software, some substantive items were discussed. Here are four of them:

Index names and addresses in accordance with the current Deed Indexing Standards

“Thirty years ago, documents looked a lot different than they do now. For example, many mortgages look just like deeds. Look for either “quitclaim covenants” (makes it a deed) or “mortgage covenants” (makes it a mortgage).”

“Try to avoid indexing things as MULTIPLES even though you will see quite a few of them. Try to decide which is the dominant document and use that for the document type. For instance, a Deed might also contain a Vote – call it a Deed – or a Mortgage might also contain an Assignment – call that a Mortgage but be sure to add to the index the name of the party to whom it is being assigned to the index.”

“If the property address on a deed is not clearly identified (and in older deeds it usually isn’t), just leave that field blank. Do not use a street name from the description in the STREET field. ”

Watch for additional blog entries on this topic as the project progresses.