Tuesday’s Tip – Texas Property Records On-Line UPDATED

If you have ancestors who owned property in the Lone Star State, you may be interested in the following websites that provide free searches of property records and the ability to view or print documents at a reasonable cost. About one-half of Texas' 254 counties are represented on these sites. Coverage varies by county from the early 1800s to the present time. As a key, counties in red cover records back into the 1800s; counties in blue include records starting between 1900 and 1940.

UPDATE 3 August 2011: A reader inquired whether online records were available free of charge on the County Clerk's websites. Of the counties I've researched, only one had free copies available online and those included a watermark of the word "unofficial." For a copy without a watermark, the fee was $1 per page; this is what I have been charged for copies both online and in-person at the courthouse. FREE is definitely better than $1 if things like watermarks are not a concern. Do be sure to check the County Clerk's website FIRST to see if you can get copies at a more reasonable cost than is available at the sites below.

Texas Land Records  

• Free search
• Pay-per-Access Members can view/print documents at $1 per page

Counties covered: Angelina, Bandera, Bee, Bell, Bosque, Brazos, Cameron, Cherokee, Coleman, Cooke, Denton, Edwards, Fannin, Goliad, Grayson, Hays, Hidalgo, Hutchinson, Jim Wells, Karnes, Madison, Midland, Nacogdoches, Panola, Potter, Robertson, Rockwall, Rusk, Scurry, Smith, Taylor, Upton, Walker, Wichita, Wilbarger, Wise. 

TexasFile 

• Free login and search
• Preview document for $1-2
• Purchase (including view, print, save options) for $2-4 per document or $1 per page depending on county

Counties covered: Anderson, Aransas, Atascosa, Bandera, Bastrop, Bee, Bell, Blanco, Bosque, Brazoria, Brazos, Burnet, Calhoun, Cameron, Carson, Castro, Chambers, Cherokee, Collin, Colorado, Comal, Comanche, Dallas, Denton, DeWitt, Duval, Eastland, Ector, Ellis, Erath, Fayette, Fort Bend, Freestone, Gaines, Galveston, Goliad, Gonzales, Grayson, Gregg, Guadalupe, Hale, Harris, Harrison, Hays, Henderson, Hill, Hood, Hopkins, Houston, Howard, Hunt, Jack, Jackson, Jefferson, Jim Hogg, Jim Wells, Johnson, Karnes, Kaufman, Kendall, Kenedy, Kleberg, La Salle, Lavaca, Liberty, Limestone, Live Oak, Lubbock, Madison, Matagorda, McLennan, McMullen, Midland, Milam, Montague, Montgomery, Nacogdoches, Navarro, Nueces, Orange, Palo Pinto, Panola, Parker, Polk, Potter, Randall, Refugio, Robertson, Rusk, San Jacinto, San Patricio, Shelby, Smith, Somervell, Tarrant, Tom Green, Travis, Tyler, Upton, Uvalde, Val Verde, Van Zandt, Victoria, Walker, Ward, Washington, Webb, Wichita, Willacy, Williamson, Wilson, Winkler, Wise, Wood.

© 2011 Denise Spurlock, Ancestral Trees Research