Revamped BLM-GLO Website

Doesn’t work well with mobile devices.

Thank you to Ann Staley 🤗 for offering, in the midst of her IGHR prep, to personally orient this Ol’ Myrt to the new BLM-GLO website. Ann’s institute participants will appreciate her new screen shots and the latest, greatest info on the subject!

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Wow! The BLM-GLO rebuild has caused quite a stir among professionally-oriented family historians, who have moved on from gathering the basic census and vital records to make cogent kinship determinations. 🤗

WHAT’S THE BLM-GLO?

The Bureau of Land Management - General Land Office was charged with surveying and distributing federal land in public land states under authority of laws enacted by Congress, with the purpose of claiming heretofore undeveloped land in the wilds of the American west.

“The BLM-GLO Records website is an official database providing digital access to more than five million federal land title records, survey plats, and field notes dating back to 1788. It is managed by the Bureau of Land Management.” See: [https://glorecords.blm.gov/s/]

The default search option on the current home page requires knowing the legal land description, serial number, standard geocoder, or address.

My research of cash entry, homestead, and desert land claims in the BLM-GLO land records did not include an address for property. Rather, the base line and principle meridian assigned by surveyors set the area for PLSS (Public Land Survey System) or rectangular survey. Instead of addresses to uniquely define my ancestors’ property purchases, the records include a section, township, and range to describe the boundaries of a given piece of land.

Obviously searching by name is sorely needed.

ADVANCED SEARCH

What I’ve discovered is that “advanced”search is not currently available on a mobile devices like my iPad or iPhone. That’s where one may search by a name rather than the legal land description

It is by surname that I located federal land purchases in places I had never anticipated finding an ancestor. This widened my understanding of his migration pattern and learning his friends, associates and neighbors — essential for differentiating between two men with the same name.

COMPUTER VS MOBILE DEVICE ACCESS

The old BLM-GLO website *did* look and act the same in both the computer and mobile versions. Not so with the revision. Exploring the revamped website proved frustrating.

Our first clue that the mobile device experience was different from accessing via computer was when Mary Kircher Roddy noticed her map view via computer showed “Gulf of Mexico” whereas my iPad and iPhone showed the label “Gulf of America.” We exchanged screen shots to prove it.

SIDE NOTE

Followers know me well enough to understand I would never attempt intensive historical document research on my cell phone. 🤣 I need four monitors and my U-shaped desk.

WHY IS MYRT USING HER CELL?

Several times during an impromptu conversation, my iPhone has proved useful to quickly show a friend what’s available at BLM-GLO, FindAGrave, WikiTree, & etc. to encourage breaking away from relying solely on Ancestry, FamilySearch Family Tree, or FamilySearch Record Search.

I’v recently noted a sharp rise in the use of mobile devices, mostly among the 20-30 year old people I meet up with for other reasons. They hear I’m into genealogy, and I’ll end up pulling out my iPhone to show them an ancestral document to get ‘em excited. Hence my testing *any* site on my phone.

21st CENTURY TECHNOLOGY

Modern web development requires full functionality across multiple devices and all mainstream browsers. It may be that the government contract for revamping the BLM-GLO website did not specify the extra hours to accomplish this.

CONCLUSION

The lesson here to take best advantage of the revamped BLM-GLO site one should explore via computer and not a mobile device.

AND, if ever you get a chance to learn research methodology from Ann Staley, TAKE IT!

Happy family tree climbing!

Myrt

DearMYRTLE,

Your (not so) retired friend in genealogy.