Fall/Winter Stone Searching 2021/2022

Teegate

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Sep 17, 2002
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All,

Today we returned to the Oswego Gun Club area in Bass River to look for the final property corner of that tract. The old time maps call it the Mick tract and it was as I have mentioned before possibly the site of the Buck Tavern. Arthur Pierce mentions this in "Iron in the Pines."

Anyway, this area had a fire earlier this year and as usual I did not get there right after the fact, but today it still is fairly open and semi easy to explore.

The many burned area's.

fire.jpg


When the state surveyed the property in the 1950's they did not mention a stone on the far western point of the property even though old surveys say there was one. The arrow in the below map tells us there was one.

Stone.jpg


Since the Wharton survey team did not find or at least mention the stone, I was curious to see if they were wrong. We had to first make our way a quarter mile through woods that had not been burned to arrive at the location where the state monument would be in an area that had burned. Once we entered the burned area we could easily look around and quickly found the state monument placed there in the 1950s. The monument has a "C" on it telling us it was a corner, but there was no number and arrow pointing to a stone. This tells us the location did not have a stone.

DSC_3367a.jpg



Looking around we were sure they were wrong or had made an error, as we noticed this nearby. The fire had burned away most of the ground cover.

DSC_3372a.jpg



Jessica gave it a hard poke with her walking stick and this semi large well anchored stone between Lots 8 and 9 of the Oswego Tract on the western side of the Mick property came to view.

DSC_3377a.jpg
 
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Teegate

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Has anyone else noticed that the states tax parcel website has removed the names of all of the property owners? You can see the address and all other info, but the names are gone.

For example. The church in Atsion. No name.

church.jpg
 

Rooftree

Explorer
Mar 24, 2017
397
636
79
Haddon Township
Guy; I was just on the tax parcel site today, but I didn't pay attention to it. However, about a week ago I was checking out a parcel owned by Air Time. Inc and their name was on it. But not now. Since I brought their name up, do you have any information on them. I'm not getting anywhere.
 

RednekF350

Piney
Feb 20, 2004
5,075
3,371
Pestletown, N.J.
Has anyone else noticed that the states tax parcel website has removed the names of all of the property owners? You can see the address and all other info, but the names are gone.

For example. The church in Atsion. No name.

View attachment 16422
The change was made over the weekend Guy, apparently. I was using the Geoweb on Friday afternoon at around 4:00 p.m. looking at ownership of some crappy lots in Voorhees and saw that they were owned by people in FL. Today, I went to check the ownership of one of them and Poof !, ownership is gone.

A site I still use a lot is NJACTB. I use it to trace ownership and get a lead on Deed Book and Page references for my research. They took all of the property owner names off their web site about a year ago. I spoke with an assessor friend of mine about it and she said it was related to this:

That initial legislation was to protect judges only but it may have morphed beyond that ??? I haven't confirmed that yet but something has obviously changed.

The information was always very current on NJACTB and I can still get my book and pages needed by running the block and lot or the last name, if I know it. When you have the last name, it will list all of the properties owned by persons with that last name but will not show you the full name. It will give you the street address and a book and page. The process is quick when the last name isn't common. If it is common, you would have to check each one. Once I have the book and page, I go to the Camden County Clerk's website and get the deed in about 15 seconds. The deed gives me the name and address of the current owner, effectively defeating the purpose of the legislation. It's much easier than it sounds.
 
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Teegate

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Air Time is a Elmont NY corporation that I would assume purchases and sells land in NJ. Air Time owned land in the Shoal Branch area and sold it to the Frontier Land Corp, a NJ Corporation at 2432A Route 563 Chatsworth NJ. I may be wrong but I believe Frontier may be Bill Haines because I found stones along the land of that parcel and his signs were up.

 

Teegate

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Sep 17, 2002
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The change was made over the weekend Guy, apparently. I was using the Geoweb on Friday afternoon at around 4:00 p.m. looking at ownership of some crappy lots in Voorhees and saw that they were owned by people in FL. Today, I went to check the ownership of one of them and Poof !, ownership is gone.

A site I still use a lot is NJACTB. I use it to trace ownership and get a lead on Deed Book and Page references for my research. They took all of the property owner names off their web site about a year ago. I spoke with an assessor friend of mine about it and she said it was related to this:

That initial legislation was to protect judges only but it may have morphed beyond that ??? I haven't confirmed that yet but something has obviously changed.

The information was always very current on NJACTB and I can still get my book and pages needed by running the block and lot or the last name, if I know it. When you have the last name, it will list all of the properties owned by persons with that last name but will not show you the full name. It will give you the street address and a book and page. The process is quick when the last name isn't common. If it is common, you would have to check each one. Once I have the book and page, I go to the Camden County Clerk's website and get the deed in about 15 seconds. The deed gives me the name and address of the current owner, effectively defeating the purpose of the legislation. It's much easier than it sounds.

Well, I can tell you this change has already effected how I operate here. I am working blind now.
 
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RednekF350

Piney
Feb 20, 2004
5,075
3,371
Pestletown, N.J.
Well, I can tell you this change has already effected how I operate here. I am working blind now.
As I said Guy, the process I described is not too difficult, just a few more steps using a combination of Geoweb and NJACTB and you will still get what you need in most cases.
Give me a call if you want to discuss.
 

Teegate

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Sep 17, 2002
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I have in the past been in contact with someone who runs the site and I wrote them and asked why.
 

Teegate

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Sep 17, 2002
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As I said Guy, the process I described is not too difficult, just a few more steps using a combination of Geoweb and NJACTB and you will still get what you need in most cases.
Give me a call if you want to discuss.
It is not that I can't get the info, it is just the fact I can search 20 lots in seconds using the site the way it was.
 

Boyd

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Jul 31, 2004
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Ben's Branch, Stephen Creek
You can still download the full dataset from NJGIN. If you have ArcGIS (which I don't) there is one file that includes the whole state with all the ownership data, so I think that would be very straightforward. For my own maps, I downloaded the individual counties as shapefiles. Everything is included in the download, but the ownership data is in a separate .dbf database file. These files can be merged into a single one - if you know how. That is not too difficult if you understand relational databases, but I suppose most people don't. ;)

Anyway, if this kind of data is important then it might be worth your while to learn how. And if you are doing this professionally then it might make sense to have ArcGIS anyway. That is above my pay grade however. :D
 
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RednekF350

Piney
Feb 20, 2004
5,075
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Pestletown, N.J.
You can still download the full dataset from NJGIN. If you have ArcGIS (which I don't) there is one file that includes the whole state with all the ownership data, so I think that would be very straightforward. For my own maps, I downloaded the individual counties as shapefiles. Everything is included in the download, but the ownership data is in a separate .dbf database file. These files can be merged into a single one - if you know how. That is not too difficult if you understand relational databases, but I suppose most people don't. ;)

Anyway, if this kind of data is important then it might be worth your while to learn how. And if you are doing this professionally then it might make sense to have ArcGIS anyway. That is above my pay grade however. :D
Thanks Boyd. We have ArcGIS and two of our new engineering hires (young guys fresh out of Rowan) know how to use it. I think. :D
 
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Boyd

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Ben's Branch, Stephen Creek
I think this would the file you want for ArcGIS

 

RednekF350

Piney
Feb 20, 2004
5,075
3,371
Pestletown, N.J.
I think this would the file you want for ArcGIS

Thanks Boyd.
One of our guys is toying with it as we speak. I also emailed the GIS people at NJDEP this morning to see what the reason is for the ownership redaction. I bcc'd you on that.
 
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Boyd

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Ben's Branch, Stephen Creek
Thanks, will be interested in the response. I have always been a bit concerned about showing owners on my parcel maps. Depending on the reason for redacting the names, I might need to pull those maps from my site. :(
 

Teegate

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Sep 17, 2002
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I received a response from a man I have corresponded with concerning the parcel site. He confirmed it is because of the legislation concerning Judges and others that are worried about safety. There is legislation in the works to narrow the scope to certain individuals, and if passed the names will return. For now we just have to wait.
 

Teegate

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Sep 17, 2002
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Thanks, will be interested in the response. I have always been a bit concerned about showing owners on my parcel maps. Depending on the reason for redacting the names, I might need to pull those maps from my site. :(
I would think you might want to consider checking into this.
 
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