A tract index is a document which summarizes real property transaction

Real estate transaction

A real estate transaction is the process whereby rights in a unit of property is transferred between two or more parties, e.g. in case of conveyance one party being the seller and the other being the buyer...

s in certain U.S states and may be available in the offices of Recorder of deeds

Recorder of deeds

Recorder of deeds is a government office tasked with maintaining public records and documents, especially records relating to real estate ownership that provide persons other than the owner of a property with real rights over that property.-Background:...

.

Layout and content

The information is organised by section, with a section relating to one square mile

Square mile

The square mile is an imperial and US unit of measure for an area equal to the area of a square of one statute mile. It should not be confused with miles square, which refers to the number of miles on each side squared...

. Each section is presented in a two-page representation, usually by presenting the northwest quarter-section as the top half of the left page. The other quarter-sections are placed in map relationship to the northwest. In each quarter-section area, all transfers are listed in chronological order

Chronology

Chronology is the science of arranging events in their order of occurrence in time, such as the use of a timeline or sequence of events. It is also "the determination of the actual temporal sequence of past events".Chronology is part of periodization...

, often regardless of any subdivisions of the quarter-section. Each entry includes several cross-reference details, such as the names of the grantor (seller) and grantee(purchaser), the volume and page of the Deed books, the date, and other identifying characteristics of the transfer (for example, the type of deed).

Typically, when one quarter-section fills with its listings of transactions, a new volume is begun, so that all transactions in a period are found in the same volume. Also, the number of sections within a jurisdiction

Jurisdiction

Jurisdiction is the practical authority granted to a formally constituted legal body or to a political leader to deal with and make pronouncements on legal matters and, by implication, to administer justice within a defined area of responsibility...

 dictates how many volumes are needed for a single period.

Availability

Only a few states require their recording offices to maintain this type of index. Among these states are Nebraska

Nebraska

Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....

, North Dakota

North Dakota

North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....

, Oklahoma

Oklahoma

Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...

, South Dakota

South Dakota

South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...

, Utah

Utah

Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

 and Wyoming

Wyoming

Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...

. In addition, some other states permit recording offices to maintain tract indexes (for example, Kansas

Kansas

Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...

, Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

, Ohio

Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

, and Wisconsin

Wisconsin

Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...

).

See also

• Grantor-grantee index
  Grantor-grantee index
  A grantor-grantee index is a general term for two lists of real property transfers maintained in alphabetical order of the last name of the parties transferring the property. One list is the grantor index, an alphabetic list of sellers...
  
  
• Recording (real estate)
  Recording (real estate)
  The vast majority of states in the United States employ a system of recording legal instruments that affect the title of real estate as the exclusive means for publicly documenting land titles and interests. This system differs significantly from land registration systems, such as the Torrens...
  
  
• Grantor (disambiguation)