Georgia Land Lottery Research

Georgia distributed three quarters of its public lands by lottery. The associated records are important for genealogists and historians who wish to document the land and the people who participated in these events. The grid survey system makes it easy to find land lottery lots today, and land lot numbers are included in legal descriptions of property from the grant to today. Land lot grants and plats form the first record of individual ownership of each tract of land in the lottery areas. This book is designed for researchers who wish to develop a foundational understanding of the land lottery survey system, the lottery process, and the records that provide documentation of this part of Georgia history.The book is a guide to researching the land lotteries on site at the Georgia Archives. After an introduction to the land lottery process and survey system, it includes a chapter outlining strategies for the most common research goals. Each research strategy leads to other chapters that explain major elements of the process in detail. The later chapters explain records of participants, fortunate drawers, grants, and plats. Following the fundamentals, a narrative chapter speaks to the variety of additional records that are important for land lottery research but do not apply to every lot. The final section of the book is organized by land lottery and includes key facts, maps, and records for each original land lottery county.