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                     Land Office Military Certificates

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Description of Collection

Land Office Military Certificates are printed forms on which the names of
Revolutionary War officers, soldiers and sailors are filled in as well as
the details of their service in the State or Continental line. In order to
receive bounty lands for Revolutionary War service, a soldier or sailor
must have served continuously for at least three years in a Virginia or
Continental unit. Service in the militia did not count.

Once proof of qualifying military service was established and a claim was
approved in the Governor's Office, the governor issued a certificate
authorizing the Land Office to issue a warrant. The warrant specified the
amount of lands to be received and directed the surveyor of lands to set
aside that quantity of land in the western reserves of Kentucky and Ohio.

Certificates verify Revolutionary War service but not necessarily land
ownership since many soldiers or their families sold the warrants to
investors or speculators. The bound registers in the Land Office also
contain the essential information from the certificates. Information
concerning the disposition of the warrants is located in the state records
of Kentucky and Ohio.

General Arrangement of Finding Aid

Arrangement is alphabetical by the last name of the soldier. The cards also
contain the military certificate number which is used to research the land
grant in Kentucky and Ohio.

Format of Collection

Microfilm and original documents

More Information about the Collection

Part of: Records of the Executive Branch. Land Office (Record Group 4).

Entry 86 in Virginia Land Office Inventory.

Related Resources

Military Warrants, 1782-1889 (Entry 91 in Virginia Land Office Inventory).

Ohio Land Office, Records Relating to Virginia Military Lands, 1787-1851
(microfilm).

Virginia Land Office Inventory (Daphne S. Gentry) revised and enlarged by
John S. Salmon (3rd ed., 1981).

See also Revolutionary War Bounty Warrants, Revolutionary War Rejected
Claims, Land Office Records and American Revolution.

Access to Materials

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