For land records agencies & title examiners
Find more in every recorded document.
Search your registry’s index and document text in one place. Find names, trace prior deeds, and uncover references that an index search alone can miss—with book-and-page citations you can check.
“The Records of Salem 1640. Broadstreet — Thomas Dexter of Lyn, yeoman by his deed dated [22th of Octor] 1639 hath mortgaged his fearme in Lyn conteyning about [—] acres with all his howses meadows and broken [—] grounde thereon for 2 oxen & 2 bulls upon condition of payment to Symon Broadstreet of Ipswich…”
Essex South District · Book 1, Page 1
From a modern deed to a 1639 mortgage, document search brings the contents of recorded pages within reach. This early Lynn record describes a farm mortgaged for two oxen and two bulls.
Where no searchable party index is available, the document text gives researchers another way to find the record.
Beyond the index
A misspelled name should not end your search.
A spelling error can keep a relevant document out of a name search. Searching the recorded text alongside the index gives examiners another way to find it.
These examples from the supplied registry data show differences between index entries and names on the recorded page.
| Index entry | Name on the document |
|---|---|
| CAPELA, PETER W (incorrect) | Peter W. Copelas |
| STEVES, STEVEN G (incorrect) | Steven Stavis |
| KELLAHAR, RUTH E (incorrect) | Ruth E. Keller |
| DUNPHEY, WARREN W (incorrect) | Warren W. Dunphy |
| SLIGER, CHARLES J (incorrect) | Charles J. Slager |
| CAURIS, KREON L (incorrect) | Kreon L. Cyros |
| Salem Five Cents Savings Rank (incorrect) | Salem Five Cents Savings Bank |
One search can check both sources. Results identify whether a match comes from the index or the document text, so you can review the supporting record.
Both sources
Search the index and the document together.
The Search Assistant can search the existing index alongside the document text. A name can match either source, and the combined results show where each match was found.
Each source adds useful detail. Index entries may include detailed instrument types and cross-references; the document text adds names, property descriptions, and references within the recorded page.
Nothing replaces the official index. Where a registry has indexed a range, that index is loaded alongside the recorded text and both are searched in the same query — a name matches if it appears in either. You do not run one search, then a second, then reconcile them.
Names and places
Names change. Your search can follow.
Older records may use earlier place names or different spellings. Search for Ipswich and explore matches under Agawam or Ipswiche; search for Peabody and include records referring to South Danvers or Brooksby.
| Searched for | Also matches, in the record |
|---|---|
| Ipswich | Agawam · Ipswch · Ipswiche |
| Gloucester | Cape Ann · Glocester · Glosester · Glouster |
| Peabody | Brooksby · South Danvers · Peobody |
| Haverhill | Pentucket · Haverhil · Haverhile |
| Lynnfield | Linn End · Lynn End · Lynfield |
| Amesbury | Almsbury · Amesburry · Amisbury |
| Swampscott | Swampscot · Swamscott · Swompscott |
| Marblehead | Marble Head · Marblehd · Marbleheade |
Variant matching also helps with surnames, company names, and abbreviations for instrument types.
The variant list grows from comparisons between processed documents and the registry index. Observed variations carry a count of the documents containing the variants.
The pre-index era
Reach records beyond the searchable index.
The Essex South District land records data contains 2,279,043 pages before Book 3793, where searchable party-index coverage is limited. Searching the text opens another route into these older records.
Older easements, rights of way, probate questions, and boundary research can lead beyond the searchable index. Full-text search helps examiners locate records for closer review.
For examiners
Bring more of the title history into view.
Look beyond indexed party names to find references within deeds, attachments, liens, and discharges. Review each result against the recorded page.
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Misfiled names
Find names across spelling variations
Search across observed name variants, such as Copelas/Capela and Slager/Sliger, without entering each spelling separately.
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Other parties
Attachments, liens, executions and discharges
Search names within attachments, liens, executions, and discharges, including parties that may not appear in grantor or grantee fields.
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Chain
Follow prior-deed references
Follow citations extracted from deed text. When citations end, review suggested links based on names, property details, and dates, with a reason and confidence score for each.
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By property
Search by property details
Find street names, lot numbers, and plan references within deed descriptions to explore records associated with a property.
Book-and-page or document number citations are the primary linkage between documents; the Search Assistant finds those links, but also provides other ways to link them. The Search Assistant helps you find and organize records; examiners assess the documents and the links between them.
What it does
Put your existing records to work.
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Name search
Find parties in the document text
Search grantors, grantees, and other named parties across the index and document text.
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Chain of title
Trace a parcel through earlier deeds
A dataset extracted by the Search Assistant can provide millions of prior-deed citations. Use these references to explore earlier records without individually searching for each book and page.
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At the counter
Prepare index entries for staff review
Extract parties, property details, consideration, and prior references from new recordings. Staff review, correct, or reject the proposed entries.
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Plain questions
Ask questions in plain language
Ask “Who conveyed the Bennett Hill Road parcel prior to 1960?” Answers include document citations so users can verify the underlying records.
See the results
From recorded page to useful answers.
Explore examples of draft indexing, chain-of-title research, name search, and cited answers, followed by a historic handwriting example. Record excerpts and system output are preserved for review.
Turn a new recording into a draft index entry
Book 7667, Page 45 · recorded 14 January 1985What was recorded
MASSACHUSETTS QUITCLAIM DEED SHORT FORM (INDIVIDUAL)
I, HELEN A. KYRIOS, of Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts being
unmarried, for consideration paid, and in full consideration of
$30,000.00 grant to GEORGE FREEDLAND and MARILYN A.
FREEDLAND
, Husband and wife, as Tenants by the Entirety… with quitclaim
covenants the land in said Lynn, bounded and described as follows:
SOUTHEASTERLY by Western Avenue, forty-five (45) feet; SOUTHWESTERLY by land now
or formerly of D.F. Adams and Thomas C. Plummer
… and, NORTHEASTERLY by
Albion Street, fifty-eight (58) feet.
For title reference see deed of Max Levine to Michael T. Kyrios, dated August 19,
1943, recorded with… Book 3345, Page 334.
What the system proposed
- Type
- Deed
- Recorded
- 14 January 1985
- Grantor
- Helen A. Kyrios
- Grantee
- George Freedland and Marilyn A. Freedland
- Consideration
- $30,000.00
- Locus
- Land in Lynn — Western Avenue at Albion Street
- Abutters
- D.F. Adams · Thomas C. Plummer · Walter B. Allen
- Prior deed
- Book 3345, Page 334
Explore a chain of title
Traced from Book 7634, Page 446
What every card carries
- Instrument and citation
- Type, book and page, and the recording year — the identifiers an examiner writes down.
- Parties, in direction
- Grantor to grantee, so the direction of the conveyance is never ambiguous.
- Locus as recorded
- The property description read from the deed itself — here, Lot 1, Friend Street, Amesbury.
- What the link rests on
- Linked to prior deed by cited reference, with a confidence figure. A weak link gives the reason it is included by citing the document text.
- The page image
- One click to the recorded image, so any extracted information can be checked against the original.
Where each link leads
- ↑ Find earlier owners
- Candidate predecessors by name, parcel and date — how you get past a break where nothing cites backwards.
- ↓ Later documents
- What followed: mortgages, discharges, attachments, subsequent conveyances.
- ↳ Where the chain might resume
- Where a broken thread plausibly picks up again, after a probate or an unrecorded gap for example.
- ⋯ Instruments that may relate to this parcel
- Liens, easements and takings touching the same land but filed under different names.
- ⊞ Subdivision / plan
- The recorded plan the lot derives from, and the other lots created with it.
- ↔ May be related
- Documents tied by party or parcel with no citation between them — offered, often a shared reference to a prior document.
The document, put into plain English
- Written from the record
- Parties, consideration, lot size, the recorded plan, the abutting owners, even who drew the deed — each traceable to a line on the page beside it.
- Two contexts, one document
- Land Records reads it as an examiner would. Genealogy reads the same deed for the people in it — one record serving both constituencies on a single website.
- The image never leaves the screen
- Page through, zoom, and check any statement against the original without losing your place in the chain.
It states its own limits, on screen
- “Not a title examination”
- Noted above the results, not buried in a footer. Weakly-corroborated links are drawn dashed rather than presented like the rest.
- “Conjectural — for research, not a title determination”
- With the reason attached: these links are inferred from the text and may be incomplete or wrong. Verify every link against the recorded instruments before relying on it.
- Why that is important
- In a title context a tool that overstates itself is worse than no tool. Saying plainly which parts are inferred is what makes the rest of it usable.
Deed · possible
Anthony W. Reddy → Harrison L. & Bernice I. Eaton
Book 3322, Page 459
Bernice I. Eaton took title here, Amesbury, parcel: formerly0.86
Deed · possible
Anthony W. & Loretta C. Reddy → Bernice I. & Harrison L. Eaton
Book 3322, Page 457
Bernice I. Eaton took title here, Amesbury0.80
Deed · possible
William H. & Florence C. Sleeper → Harrison L. & Bernice I. Eaton
Book 5607, Page 425
Bernice I. Eaton took title here0.68
Deed · possible
Walter & Florence A. Goldthwaite → Calvin E. & Joan Eaton
Book 5851, Page 257
a EATON took title here (surname only — verify), Amesbury, parcel: formerly0.64
Find names in older records
Party: “Copelas”| Book / Page | Recorded | Type | Parties |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3144/63 | 1938 | Deed | Beverly Savings Bank → Peter & Dimitra Copelas |
| 3144/64 | 1938 | Discharge | Peter & Dimitra Copelas → Beverly Savings Bank |
| 3144/65 | 1938 | Mortgage | Peter & Dimitra Copelas |
| 3155/31 | 1938 | Mortgage | Charles A. & Helen F. Harris → Peter & Demetra Copelas |
| 3242/77 | 1940 | Mortgage | Peter E. Copelas Jr. → Michael R. & John W. Connolly |
| 3306/299 | 1942 | Deed | Salem Five Cents Savings Bank → Hercules & Mary Copelas |
Ask a question. Follow the citations.
Answered from the records, with citationsReturned — verbatim, abridged to one of the two properties found
Prior ownership — the Freedland property in Lynn. Freedland acquired title on 2 recorded deed(s) in Lynn; showing the 2 with a traceable prior-owner chain (most recent first).
| Step | Rec. date | Grantor | Grantee | Citation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 (subject) | 1985-01-14 | HELEN A. KYRIOS | GEORGE FREEDLAND and MARILYN A. FREEDLAND | 7667/45 |
| 1 | 1943-08-23 | Max Levine | Michael T. Kyrios | 3345/334 |
Summary For the Lynn / Western Avenue–Albion Street parcel, George and Marilyn Freedland acquired title from Helen A. Kyrios by deed recorded January 14, 1985 (Book 7667, Page 45). The chain behind Helen Kyrios traces back one additional link to Michael T. Kyrios, who had received the property from Max Levine by deed recorded August 23, 1943 (Book 3345, Page 334). The recorded chain therefore runs to 1943, with Max Levine as the earliest grantor shown; nothing prior to Levine appears in the provided records.
It is worth noting that the locus descriptions in the chain for the Winthrop property reference “a parcel of land in Lynn” at the deeper links, which may indicate a mismatch or drafting inconsistency in the source documents and warrants closer examination of the underlying instruments.
Make historic handwriting searchable
Book 4, Page 81 · Salem, 1674The recorded page
The full text, as transcribed
…of land aboute fifteene ples, alsoe a fine acre lott or picell of upland, containing by estormatione five acres, be it more or less, lying in the north field of ye sd Towne of Salem, & is bounded at one end with a land of John Burton, at the other end with ye land of John Tomkins senior & the Widdow Sprouer, & haveing on the one side the land of Job Sprouer Senior, & on the other side bounded with ye land of fine overall men, and an other picell of upland, containinge five acres, more or lesse, lying by the land of John Southwick deceased, & having one end thereof extending close to the south east side of Reddish hill, ye other end and one side bounded with ye land of ye sd Southwick, & the other side bounded with the hrocks, all which was formerly in the possession of William Osborne. To have & to hold the sd dwelling house & any of ye sd picells of land before mentioned, according as they are hereby described & bounded, with all the profits, privileges & appurtenances thereunto belonging, unto ye sd Geo. Bill his heirs & assigns forever. & by the said George Comins doc by these presents, for one, my heirs, executors & administrators, further covenant promise & agree, to & with ye sd John & Bill his heirs & assigns, to warrant & defend the sd paraging & sales, & the quiet & peaceable possession thereof to maintaine, unto ye sd John & Bill, his heirs & assigns, in all manner of pison laying claims thereto, by force or otherwise, my heirs, executors or administrators. On which whereof I have hereunto sett my hand & seal…
Information the system extracted
- Type
- Deed
- Dated
- 1 July 1674
- Place
- Salem
- Abutters
- John Burton · John Tomkins senior · the Widdow Sprouer · John Southwick deceased
Deployment
Connect your records. We handle the hosting.
The hosted service works from copies of your registry’s images. A file watcher sends new images from your existing image store to the service as they arrive, with no dedicated server to purchase.
This connection is already in use at two Massachusetts registries, according to the supplied project information.
Copies only
Your recording system, official index, and image archive stay under your control. The Search Assistant works from copies.
Outbound only
Your registry system sends copies to the hosting service through an outbound connection.
Updates as records arrive
New images are sent when they are saved, then processed for search.
Use your existing images
Process the TIFF images you already produce and search existing index entries alongside the document text.
Custody
The Register remains the custodian of the official record. The assistant searches copies; the registry’s own images and index remain authoritative.
Search results are not official records or certified copies. Each registry has a separate store, index, and search instance. If the arrangement ends, copies are returned or destroyed at the registry’s direction.
Next
See what your records can reveal.
Choose a book range and a few names you know it contains. We’ll demonstrate the search on your records and compare the results with your current search.
Bring a book range. Start with names you know.