Working with Grafton County deeds online

Some detailed information follows that may help some who want to access the early Grafton County deed books online. If you try these tips, please let me know how they work for you on your computer. It's particularly important that you let me know if the tips don't work for you! (I use a Vista Business 32-bit machine; tested each of the steps today before publishing this discusssion.)

Adding to Dennis' use of the terms, I'll say you can work with the early Grafton County deed books two ways ... the hard way (I don't think it's hard) and the really hard way.

(1) The hard way (but not really hard).

(a) Order the grantor-grantee deed indexes for the surnames and/or dates in which you have the most interest from the Grafton County Registry of Deeds. From just the deed indexes you will no doubt learn TONS of information. Each entry in the deed index will contain a book and page number as well as the name of the grantor and the grantee. You'll use the book and page number to locate the online deed book image. The names will confirm that you have located the correct entry.

(b) With book and page number, visit the home page of Grafton County Registry of Deeds ... at the link to the left, click "Search County Records." It will take you to the "Registry Disclaimer." You'll need to click, "Accept Agreement." It will take what seems like forever, but if your browser is Java enabled, eventually up will pop a window titled, "Graton County Index/Image Selection." I have attached an annotated screen shot, see “Grafton County Registry of Deeds.pdf.“

(c) In the window, “Graton County Index/Image Selection,” you only work with items on the RIGHT side. See the attached screen shot (I’ve “hidden” the parts you don’t need to work with … and placed green boxes around the parts you’ll be working with).
Enter the early BOOK number you want as a 9000 series. So, for early book number 12 is entered as 9012.
Enter the page number you want to view in the early book. In the example attached, I asked for page 52.
Then click, “Click Here to View Document.”

Shortly, up will pop the digital image of that page in its own window. I have attached a screen shot for this book number “9012” and page 52. See, “Grafton County Registry of Deeds_example.pdf.”

(d) See the notes on the attachment. From the Grafton’s deed view window, you can page back and forth in the same deed book, jump to other deed book pages, enlarge your view, etc. With a little work, you can create screen shots of the deed images and “stitch” them together—creating your own digital images of these “unofficial” copies. (Do you suppose we know anyone who would do that?)


(2) The really hard way.
If you don’t have the grantor/grantee indexes, you can page through the deed books. (MIght "we" know someone who would do that?) Remember though, the deed books are arranged chronologically, but based on the date of the recording (not the date of the event). It’s not uncommon to find a deed recorded years after the sale or purchase occurred. If a deed was never recorded, it won’t be located in the deed books.

Hope this helps. --GJ

P.S. The attachment, “Grafton County Registry of Deeds_example.pdf,” includes example of the citation used for my “stitched” images from these early Grafton County deed books.