The deed came! I am a lawful land owner, and as I lay down in my very own moss patch, I realized that title confers a sense of utter belonging. In that acre, I am blameless. It is very important, then, that I make sure I'm actually on my own land; more than guilt-inducing, being caught trespassing carries the risk of fines and potential jail time.
The county provides a tax map of my property online, but it only details the dimensions of the property. If you are able to locate your parcel on Google maps, as I have been able to do in the past, then you can find the distance between notable points, and also their GPS coordinates to a certain degree of accuracy. However, I think one of the best methods is to type in your county, state, and "GIS" in a search engine. GIS stands for Geographic Information System. If you happen upon a good base map, you can enter your parcel number and it will provide you the tools to measure distance, area, specific coordinates, and different overlays. The only way I've found to save these measurements is a screen shot.
In the name of conserving finances, I persued a way to find the coordinates with my cell phone. Lo and behold! Here is a website that tells you how, and provides a free mapping program. Here is the pdf with the instructions. This guy's map has coordinates written as only one integer, as degrees (called decimal degrees). What you'll find on some other maps are coordinates notated in degrees, minutes('), and seconds("). Here is a converter. Essentially, I used the aformentioned program to get close to the first coordinate. I would check my location, walk a few steps in the right directions, check again, take some more steps, check, etc... It took a while. There are four corners, a lot easier than some oddly-shaped properties, but I only got to two of them. Every tool I've linked to forewarns that it is not meant to give accurate results, and I tell you now, it will not stand up in any court. For safety, I'm going to take whatever results I get and then go in a whole lot more, so that I don't risk infringing on someone else's lot.
I don't feel bad about not hitting all corners, because this video will hopefully let me mark the border using the county tax map, which is an official document. I've looked for the compass he uses in Home Depot, Lowe's, and a nice little hardware shop near the lot, but have not found it yet. I think I am just going to order it online, and look forward to telling you how it works out. Here are pictures in the mean time.
The county provides a tax map of my property online, but it only details the dimensions of the property. If you are able to locate your parcel on Google maps, as I have been able to do in the past, then you can find the distance between notable points, and also their GPS coordinates to a certain degree of accuracy. However, I think one of the best methods is to type in your county, state, and "GIS" in a search engine. GIS stands for Geographic Information System. If you happen upon a good base map, you can enter your parcel number and it will provide you the tools to measure distance, area, specific coordinates, and different overlays. The only way I've found to save these measurements is a screen shot.
In the name of conserving finances, I persued a way to find the coordinates with my cell phone. Lo and behold! Here is a website that tells you how, and provides a free mapping program. Here is the pdf with the instructions. This guy's map has coordinates written as only one integer, as degrees (called decimal degrees). What you'll find on some other maps are coordinates notated in degrees, minutes('), and seconds("). Here is a converter. Essentially, I used the aformentioned program to get close to the first coordinate. I would check my location, walk a few steps in the right directions, check again, take some more steps, check, etc... It took a while. There are four corners, a lot easier than some oddly-shaped properties, but I only got to two of them. Every tool I've linked to forewarns that it is not meant to give accurate results, and I tell you now, it will not stand up in any court. For safety, I'm going to take whatever results I get and then go in a whole lot more, so that I don't risk infringing on someone else's lot.
I don't feel bad about not hitting all corners, because this video will hopefully let me mark the border using the county tax map, which is an official document. I've looked for the compass he uses in Home Depot, Lowe's, and a nice little hardware shop near the lot, but have not found it yet. I think I am just going to order it online, and look forward to telling you how it works out. Here are pictures in the mean time.