Jackson County, Oregon

Contact Southern Oregon Historical Society

  • Check the Address Index in case they have a file on your home or it has been included in an Historical Survey.
  • Search the Mega Index and Photos Index for information about or photos of people who lived in your home
  • For some areas of Jackson County, Sanborn and plat maps may be helpful
  • City directories may provide additional information
  • Donation Land Claim maps for Jackson County are available on microfiche. (General Land Office Records may have more detailed maps - use the Surveys tab)

Search Jackson County Online Sources

  • Property Data Online, for Jackson County, Oregon. This provides previous owners' names, improvements made to your home, original deed cards, and other information. Instructions. 
    • This source may be your best starting point. The deed card that you will find should list previous owners, with dates. It may not show your home or property's earlies owners.
    • To pursue your search to ownership of your home or property in earlier years, you may continue your search at the Jackson County Recorder's office. By using their print indexes and digitized data, you my search previous sellers and previous buyers, then print out deed records. 
  • Jackson County Interactive Mapping -
  • Survey Index Map - this is a good source for a quick overview of township, range and section boundaries. By zooming into a property, you can determine existence of buildings on the property, subdivision names, and dates of surveys. You can also view the surveys. 
    • You can find Donation Land Claim boundaries on this map also:
    • Select Survey Index Map
    • Zoom in to the property 
    • Click the Layer List icon in the upper right corner
    • Deselect Townships, Sections, County Surveys
    • This unclutters the screen so you may view the brown outlines of Donation Land Claims
    • Within the boundary of a DLC, zoom in until you can view the brown DLC number

Additional Important Online Sources

  • Historic Oregon Newspapers might turn up articles about the people who lived in your home.
  • Newspapers.com is another source that covers many local papers, but it requires a subscription.
  • Jackson County Genealogy Society has indexing online for many Jackson County obituaries and other records. Try it online, or visit them (3405 South Pacific Highway, Medford, OR)
  • Southern Oregon History, Revised (Ben Truwe's website) provides many articles about people, places and events in our area, particularly Medford
  • General Land Office Records (BLM)
    • This is the best online source for determining earlier settlers on your property, if they had donation land claims 
    • Before using this source, determine the Township, Range and Section of your property (Jackson County Interactive Mapping can help with that, if you don't have the information already from older deeds)
    • Use the Surveys tab if you wish to search by name
    • Use the CDI tab to search by Donation Land Claim number (enter it as the Document number). An image of the original document may be available, although it may be difficult to read
    • Use the SURVEYS tab to view maps for your township and section. The early surveys may show Donation Land Claim boundaries in more detail than other resources

 

 

State Abbreviation: 

OR