Deeds, 1665-1965
RECORD GROUP: County Clerk
RECORD SERIES #: 5000
SERIES: Deeds
DATES: 1665-1965
VOLUME: 1350 volumes, 450 cubic feet

- Recorded Grantor & Grantee Deed Books & Indexes:
- 1665-1955, available on shelves in Deed Room at Market Yard
- 1665-1976, available on shelves in Deed Room at Market Yard
- 1973-current, available online at OPRS
- Miscellaneous B Book
- Unclaimed Deeds, 1695-1856 (also called unclaimed, undelivered or unreturned), at Archives
- Colonial Conveyances of the Province of East Jersey, 1664-1794, on microfilm at Archives
Deed books consist of copies of deeds of properties in Monmouth County, New Jersey, recorded in the Office of the County Clerk. Original (loose) deeds (1695-1856) in the Archives were not picked up by property owners after being recorded in the deed books. Separate Index Books for grantors and grantees provide access to deeds by book and page number.
The Archives has a set of 3,450 Deed Books on microfilm and an incomplete set of 1,350 bound volumes. A complete bound set is at the County Clerk’s Office at Market Yard, Freehold. The first deed in Deed Book A, starts with “A Copy of the Charter or Grand Patent Granted Unto the Purchasers and Patentees of Nevasink, Narumsum and Pookapeck…” written in 1665.
Copies of the earliest deeds are also recorded in Book ABC, entitled “Records in General for the towns Middletown and Shrewsbury.” Books A, B & C were scanned and are available:
Book ABC was a bound volume (now loose pages filed individually in folders) containing Deed Books A, B, and C, covering the period 1665 to 1696. The earliest document in the ABC Book is a copy of the Monmouth Patent from 1665. Book ABC also record court cases, jury appointments, marriages, arrest warrants, manumissions and other matters.
Book ABC was disbound and the pages individually treated by the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts in 2007, with funding from a P.A.R.I.S. grant to Monmouth County.
The Archives also holds the Indexes for Deed Books A-Z, as well as Books A2 and S2.
Unclaimed Deeds, 1695-1856
Unclaimed deeds are loose papers, stored in 62 manuscript boxes and two flat boxes for oversized documents. They are filed by year. Copies of most of these deeds are recorded in the deed books, but the actual deed was not picked up or delivered to the new owner. Examples include Quit Claims, Surveys, a deed for a “Negro burying ground,” Orphan Court sale of a sawmill, and others. (2-1 & 2-6)
Grantor (buyer) and Grantee (seller) abbreviations often used:
et al – and others
ux – his wife
hd – her husband
Exr – male Executor of Last Will
Exrx – female Executor of a Last Will
Adm – male Administrator of Estate
Admx – female Administrator of Estate
Deeds also can name the Sheriff as Grantor. Deeds can be transferred by Trustees for deceased, or acting as Guardians for minors, and there are recorded deeds to purchase cemetery plots.
Colonial Conveyances, 1664-1794
Archives has a printed index of Grantors and Grantees of the Colonial Conveyances for Provinces of East Jersey, and the conveyances on 15 rolls of microfilm in the reading room. The original documents are at the New Jersey State Archives.
2125 Symmes Drive
Manalapan NJ 07726
Tel. 732-308-3771
- Corporation Grantee & Grantor Deeds, indexes and deeds on microfilm;
- Estate Records, 1739-1924, 178 records, Access database created October 20, 2014;
- Partitions of Land, 1690-1960, 377 records, Access database created April 8, 1997;
- Peter Knott Abstracts of Title, 1695-1856, 2,482 records, Access database created October 29, 2002.
- Reference book: Monmouth County Deed Books A, B, C, & D by Richard S. Hutchinson, Heritage Books, Inc., 2006.