Kudos to Martha O. Haynie's office

The Orange County Comptroller is without a doubt the most capable public official in this neck of the woods.

Now, her office is deserving of extra credit for their efforts at making local land records more accessible.

Until recently, only records dating back to 1955 were available online.

Now, however, ye socks may peruse deeds and plats dating back more than a century beyond that date. Click here to check it out:

http://or.occompt.com/recorder/eagleweb/docSearch.jsp

Even if your family's roots around here aren't as deep as my own, you may still get a kick out of tracing back the genealogy of your home.

For instance, after visiting a friend's vacant lot on Lake Pineloch today, I thought I'd do a little investigating of my own. Not only did I discover it was part of an 80-acre state land grant to pioneer Jesse Bumby dated 1869; but after it was subdivided into smaller parcels, it was part of the 5 acres owned by my great-aunt and uncle Nellie (nee Patrick) and James Neal from 1912 to 1916.

Who'da thunk it?!