[Just Jeff]

Darn!!!!! Got the drone back today, so I threw a battery in it and paired it to the controller and went outside to send it up. I lasted about 5 minutes. I was completely inundated with misquotes!!!! I flat-out couldn't take it after a few minutes. I don't know about around the country, but this year, here in the U.P. it's just plain horrendous. I got bitten so many times today alone that I wonder if I've already gotten malaria from so many bites LOL!

I guess getting pictures/video of the existing property markers, and searching for the last one will have to wait until tomorrow. Very frustrating, after looking forward to locating the last one for about a week, while waiting for the drone to get sent to me too.

 

[Ariens93GT20]

I tried looking for the maps required to locate a few things on the list. You do know they sent you the listing for both parcels #004-019-011-10 & 004-019-011-00. I have tried both the state site and county to obtain a township map. Both say no can do without a sign-in. It is understandable that they want to know who is asking for the information. Just being able to locate the parcels would help but I have not given up yet. I know of other ways of getting there.

 

[My craftsman 917.27308]

I know Zillow shows property lines when you look up your address. It may or may not help.

 

[Just Jeff]

I tried looking for the maps required to locate a few things on the list. You do know they sent you the listing for both parcels #004-019-011-10 & 004-019-011-00. I have tried both the state site and county to obtain a township map. Both say no can do without a sign-in. It is understandable that they want to know who is asking for the information. Just being able to locate the parcels would help but I have not given up yet. I know of other ways of getting there.

Yes, that is understandable. Thanks again.

I know Zillow shows property lines when you look up your address. It may or may not help.

Thanks, I'll check that out too!

 

[ZTT42]

I have tried both the state site and county to obtain a township map. Both say no can do without a sign-in.

I'm not sure exactly what you are trying to find, but If you go to the Iron River township GIS site I listed previously, you can zoom in and see the parcel lines. It is a messy red blob, but first click on the little bowtie in the middle and move the curtain to the left, then zoom in enough to find Hwy 2, then Old Beechwood road and follow it to your place, then zoom closer to see the plats. You can also turn on the Iron River 1/41/4 section lines. If you click on a parcel it will display the legal description, ownership and tax information. No sign-in is required to do this. It takes a little time to load the lines each time you zoom in, but it does work.

 

[Ariens93GT20]

I'm not sure exactly what you are trying to find, but If you go to the Iron River township GIS site I listed previously, you can zoom in and see the parcel lines. It is a messy red blob, but first click on the little bowtie in the middle and move the curtain to the left, then zoom in enough to find Hwy 2, then Old Beechwood road and follow it to your place, then zoom closer to see the plats. You can also turn on the Iron River 1/41/4 section lines. If you click on a parcel it will display the legal description, ownership and tax information. No sign-in is required to do this. It takes a little time to load the lines each time you zoom in, but it does work.

I could not get the lines or roads to load alone the plate. The red blob did appear. Anything that occurred while trying to zoom in only created a fuzzy picture. I realize my load times are not all that great. But there can't be that much information that it should take more than 30 minutes.

 

[ZTT42]

But there can't be that much information that it should take more than 30 minutes.

Dang. It shouldn't be that bad. When I said a little time to load the lines, I meant 3-6 seconds for the thick blobs to resolve to the next level on my slow 10MBPS DSL service. That said, GIS is a notorious data hog. The files are enormous and take up way too much data.
I was having speed problems and finally had to get a new modem from the phone company, then had to update the drivers in my computer before it would behave.
Here is a screenshot of the webpage with just jeff's plat

 

[90cummins]

Several years ago I was looking for my boundaries 8+ acres not square do a friend helped me using the plot plan & a transit. We marked our assumed lines when I noticed my neighbor had his anointing property surveyed talk about luck.
My line wasn’t far off so knowing exactly where the pins were I used my tractor to place some very large boulders next to the pins do if never loose track of them.
90cummins

 

[ZTT42]

A lot of GIS info was put in place from scanned documents trying to marry it up with orthophotography. The planning department always made us state that any image we provide using the GIS system is not a "legal" boundary

In the screenshot, you can see that the plat lines don't line up exactly with features on the imagery. As PA318Guy said, it is all dependent on how well the various layers were able to be "fit to print" in the data entry. The only true data is in the the survey notes and on-ground staking.
Also, if you really zoom in close, the old beechwood road R/W boundary can be seen. It appears as a couple of wedge shaped slivers, one in each of the two lots. That may account for some of the weirdness in the legal description, or it just may be a anomaly in the plat drawing.

 

[alylea]

How about the free 30 day trial of this. It seems to be pretty accurate on my property vs the marker stakes.

Land Ownership Maps & Private Parcels in the onX Hunt App
View land ownership maps and identify parcels of private land with the onX Hunt App. Try onX Hunt for free for 7 days, with no credit card required.

Land Ownership Maps to the onX Hunt App - View Parcels | onX

 

[XYooper906]

As others have mentioned, GPS accuracy can vary widely. I tried to do something similar many years ago with a handheld GPS unit. I could never find the same point twice within 50 feet.

In another, more recent example is with my Garmin Montana motorcycle GPS. If I leave it on after a trip, and then go to load the previous route into the Garmin Basecamp program on my computer, the stopping point auto updates the waypoint location. When I view the track on the map, there is a "ball of yarn" image at the stopping point, which is the system errors of the location. The bike was sitting still, but the GPS has several stored locations that can vary by hundreds of feet.

 

[ZTT42]

Here is a drawing I made of the legal description that Virtual Guy provided. It only covers the eastern tract where your house is located. The survey starts at the SW corner of section 19 and follows the section and 1/4/1/4 section line to the POB - Point Of Beginning. Then it describes the tract boundaries, minus the Road R/W. The Star is the corner you are looking for.
I looked at the legal description. for the other tract on the township website, but it is only partially shown - due to space limitations, I think. The first two locator bearings in this drawing would be the same for the other parcel.

 

[mjneiner]

I bought an inexpensive metal detector at Harbor Freight and it helped me find a below grade rod.

 

[Firetuck]

Hey guys. I'm having trouble finding my last property marker. It's possible that it has been removed by somebody.

I've got a copy of the last survey that was done, but when I go to that (South-East) corner of my property, I can't find the property marker. If you look at the sketch that I've attached, you'll see that I know exactly where three points are, and that my property is basically square (or actually rectangular, it's deeper than it is wide, but my picture doesn't reflect that, because I'm not much of an artist LOL)

I want to find (about) where my last property marker should be, because I'm in the process of cutting trail around the perimeter of the property so that the wife and I can ride our side by side all the way around the outside of our property. This property marker doesn't have to be "legal" by any means, I just want to cut trail on MY property, and make sure that I'm not trespassing and cutting trail on one of my neighbor's property. I'll probably stay15'-20' inside of my property line with my trail to make sure that I'm not encroaching too closely to my neighbor's property.

Now, if I stand at point "A", and fly my drone from point "A" to point "B", my controller will tell me exactly how many feet it is from point "A" to point "B". And likewise, it will tell me how many feet it is from point "B" to point "C". Also, if I fly from point "A" to point "C" it will tell me how many feet long that the hypotenuse angle is as well. Now, if I use the Pythagorean Theorem, in theory, I can figure out where (about) my last property boundary is. But in reality, I don't know how to place it. Any suggestions? View attachment 2553047

You actually have your answer in hand. You've got three corners and the Pythagorean calculation. That should give you the EXACT location of the missing corner. Use your drone to GPS the B corner for reference, then the D corner for location.

And, you've also got the ability to 2x3x4 the corner by using the A-B baseline. If the lot IS rectangular, and the survey shows the same width on both the A-D and B-C lines, then: measure 20 feet back from A towards B on the A-B line and drop a mark at that point; then measure (about) 30 feet in the approximate 90 degree direction of the D corner on the A-D line and swing an arc of about 10 feet; then measure 40 feet from the mark on A-B toward the arc on A-C and swing another arc. Where those two arcs cross will give you an exact 90 degree mark for the A-D line. Then measure from A toward D the same as from B-C to establish D. I would caution, to NOT repeat that same measurement from the other end. Though the results may (and probably should) be the same...it never fails to confuse folks when they're off by an inch or three.

The metal detector idea is also potential; a Schoenstadt magnetic locator is often a favored surveyors tool for this. And, I've use 'witching' to find corners on occasion. That's with the assumption that there is a marker in the ground there. Most often those markers - some years ago, and still today, are a piece of rebar (often #5) driven into the ground. They can be tough to find with overburden/leaves and stuff covering them but I've found them by grubbing around with my fingers, using a rake, or just 'kicking around' until I bumped something that didn't want to move.

I once found an 'old rifle barrel' (as shown/indicated on the 'surveyors notes') for a lot corner while surveying our old 'camp' lot in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts. A few of the other 'corners' for that survey included a 'barbed wire fence corner in a beech tree', and one or two using stonewall intersections. I guess it's no wonder that the property records for that lot varied from about 8.8 acres to 17.3 acres in the property descriptions we traced back to the early 1800's. It turned out to be right at 14.7 acres; we got the town records changed to confirm and agree with this. That exercise took a full day - but it's one of my fondest memories of 'a day with Dad' as we traipsed and measured that entire property with a compass, two 100' measuring tapes, and the combined property records from a county records search. Most of the descriptions matched (describing the gun barrel, for example) but the math skills of the various people who estimated the area sucked!

 

[GTGranny6k]

I've heard/been told that before. I don't have a metal detector, and really didn't want to buy one just for this one time usage. And as I stated in my initial post, it doesn't have to be a "legal" marker that would hold up in court, I just want a pretty accurate approximation, so that I can be sure that I'm not trespassing on my neighbor's property.

Call your local rental yard or put a request for metal detecting services on your local Facebook buy and sell group.

 

[S240 Cntrl VA]

As someone mentioned earlier, the onXmaps app for your phone can solve your problem. It cost $30 for a year per state, but they have a free 7 day trial. The following link will show my 58 acre property boundary in red and the blue dash line is the 1.61 mile trial that I cut around my property. Once the trail was finished, I just drove around with the app on bread crumb or tracking mode, and it generated the blue line.

onXmaps Web App

webmap.onxmaps.com

Hopefully you can zoom into the map and see the property corners clearly.

I think someone else also mentioned going to your county's online GIS data which should display the property lines. Then with your phone or a laptop with location turned on, you should be able to follow the boundary with an accuracy of several feet.

 

[CCMoe]

Darn!!!!! Got the drone back today, so I threw a battery in it and paired it to the controller and went outside to send it up. I lasted about 5 minutes. I was completely inundated with misquotes!!!! I flat-out couldn't take it after a few minutes. I don't know about around the country, but this year, here in the U.P. it's just plain horrendous. I got bitten so many times today alone that I wonder if I've already gotten malaria from so many bites LOL!

I guess getting pictures/video of the existing property markers, and searching for the last one will have to wait until tomorrow. Very frustrating, after looking forward to locating the last one for about a week, while waiting for the drone to get sent to me too.

Just Jeff,

I was up there years ago, third week of June. I had been snowmobiling the previous winter and thought it would be interesting to see in the summer. We had stayed in a cabin just off Lake Gogebic, close to the Hoop and Holler Tavern. The cabin was surrounded by pine trees, we were in a Grand Prix with a sun roof, pulled in and stopped to have a look at the cabin and the mosquitos filled the interior of the car, huge mosquitos. Dang near closed my eye where one bit me, from then on, we closed everything up prior to stopping anywhere. Beautiful up there, but come preparred.

CCMoe

 

[Ariens93GT20]

Dang. It shouldn't be that bad. When I said a little time to load the lines, I meant 3-6 seconds for the thick blobs to resolve to the next level on my slow 10MBPS DSL service. That said, GIS is a notorious data hog. The files are enormous and take up way too much data.
I was having speed problems and finally had to get a new modem from the phone company, then had to update the drivers in my computer before it would behave.
Here is a screenshot of the webpage with just jeff's plat

View attachment 2553752

Thanks that helps a lot.

Here is a drawing I made of the legal description that Virtual Guy provided. It only covers the eastern tract where your house is located. The survey starts at the SW corner of section 19 and follows the section and 1/4/1/4 section line to the POB - Point Of Beginning. Then it describes the tract boundaries, minus the Road R/W. The Star is the corner you are looking for.
I looked at the legal description. for the other tract on the township website, but it is only partially shown - due to space limitations, I think. The first two locator bearings in this drawing would be the same for the other parcel.


View attachment 2553773

Will I found the problem. I was looking at your post here trying to figure why you had Beechwood going east and west. Someone had posted an address of 407 which Google sent me to just south of the river. Guess what Beechwood runs north and south at the point. After see #67 yes this make all the since in the world and Long&Lat even works. So yes at times it pays to have the whole picture and confusing info is just that.

 

[Ariens93GT20]

Dang. It shouldn't be that bad. When I said a little time to load the lines, I meant 3-6 seconds for the thick blobs to resolve to the next level on my slow 10MBPS DSL service. That said, GIS is a notorious data hog. The files are enormous and take up way too much data.
I was having speed problems and finally had to get a new modem from the phone company, then had to update the drivers in my computer before it would behave.
Here is a screenshot of the webpage with just jeff's plat

View attachment 2553752

Thanks that helps a lot.

Here is a drawing I made of the legal description that Virtual Guy provided. It only covers the eastern tract where your house is located. The survey starts at the SW corner of section 19 and follows the section and 1/4/1/4 section line to the POB - Point Of Beginning. Then it describes the tract boundaries, minus the Road R/W. The Star is the corner you are looking for.
I looked at the legal description. for the other tract on the township website, but it is only partially shown - due to space limitations, I think. The first two locator bearings in this drawing would be the same for the other parcel.


View attachment 2553773

Will I found the problem. Will not yet NW corner N88°41'45"W can not be 88 some degrees south of NE corner N01°01'88"E. Things just don't work that way with an object almost rectangular. That would make the parcel one skewed parallelogram. If they have the SW corner confused with the NW corner this would be more a reality.

 

[ZTT42]

Just Jeff - Now that you have 10 ways from Sunday to find that corner, you need to put on your industrial strength DEET and mosquito netting and find that corner! We're all waiting with bated breath for the results

Actually this has been a fun and challenging post, identifying info and sources and methods to do this. I am retired over 13 years from doing this stuff, and I was pretty old school even then.
One interesting thing is how much folks rely on technology that is unreliable - like believing that a GPS will get you to a pinpoint on the ground. It's great stuff, but everything has its limitations.