Making the GIS case to county registries is a fascinating exercise, to be sure. Given the facts on paper, it should be a slam dunk: reams of location-specific data in the form of deeds and registered surveys and easements and all manner of other documents; much of this content already scanned to high quality digital formats; and no existing geospatial linkages permitting this content to be queried and accessed from the GIS context.
So what to do? Obvious! Geotag these scanned documents with an x,y reference that makes it easy to expose them to geographic searches.
And yet... Maybe not so obvious. The registers themselves are admirably dedicated to the serioiusness of the job, which is protecting and maintaining the integrity of vital documents. Any technology or procedural change that threatens this process is rightfully suspect. So the concept of potentially contaminating documents with shoddy geographic referencing is no easy sell to make.
It warrants serious consideration though. As information technology increases access to public records, whole new categories of opportunites tend to arise. It would be rewarding to see the County Registries benefit from these opportunities.
1 comment:
As a Register who is responsible for maintaining the integrity of the documents it records based on the information provide with in the body of the document and state law, I don't see how we can tag documents already recorded. We can not change a document that is already recorded unless an error is found that can be confirmed from the information contained within the document itself.(Usually a typo). Even then we have a way to note within the recording fields when and why a change was made to protect researchers.
There are also Laws in place that dictate to Registers what information must be indexed. I beleive we could index additional information like parcel Ids or x,y reference but that information needs to be a part of the document itself.
This requires changes in the statutes if recording of the information has to be enforced from the registries prospective.
Map lot information is currently on all RETT forms that must accompany most deeds filed with us (not all). We could easily index that information also but over the last several months on this project I have heard over and over by the assessing community how often the wrong map lot is given on these forms. Do you really think the correct x, y refernece will be given? When it is not, how much more does that muddy the waters for identifying parcels correctly.How will that affect getting a clear title?
I believe all id's ,that will be recorded, must come from the assessors office on some type of formal attachment that will be recorded with the deed. If later it is determined a reference is wrong the assessors office could file an afidavit type form giving the correct reference which must reference the document with incorrect information. We then make a marginal notation to that original document so there would be alink back to the correct information.
The use of the data is only as good as the source that provided it. This must all be carefully worked out before Registries should be affected. We can not undo what is done in the registries easily.
Any time an error is made it takes the recording of another document to correct it.
Diane M. Godin
Somerset Registry of Deeds
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